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Yulia Zhivichina (1991), was born and works in Moscow. Have graduated from the British High School of Art and Design Moscow, Illustration course in 2021.

My artistic practice is aimed at nurturing human aspirations for the introduction of order and clarity in the conditions of modern processing. My heroes seek the appearance, the harmony of parallel space, paradoxically choosing monolithic urban landscapes for this.

Grey, warmthless spaces become a metaphor for external and internal boundaries, routine and alienation that fetter the spirit, creating tension between the environment and a person’s inner need for freedom.

Geese, symbols of wild nature and flight beyond limitations, become irreplaceable companions and talismans in the search for freedom.Their presence next to the hero is interpreted as a quiet rebellion, an act of affirmation of vitality and an opportunity to find another dimension not outside, but within the most oppressive reality, transforming it through inner vision and connection with the primordial force.

"HONEYMOON" is an exhibition of four artists: Yanita Voit, Maria Michi, Yulia Zhivicina and Tanya Bashlakova after a chamber art residency in Alanya.

The bright original site-specific works in painting and graphic techniques of the exhibition "HONEYMOON" invite you to follow the artists through one of the four (honeymoon - crisis - recovery - adaptation) stages of cultural adaptation to a new country according to the theory of Kalervo Oberg - honeymoon. In their artistic practices, the authors explore the phenomenon of the influence of other cultures on Turkish culture and the role of tourism in this process, the centuries-old work of local craftswomen and the life of banana plantations, archaic craft practices and folklore. Artists ask themselves questions: how can locality be redefined, what role do social processes play in shaping the cultural landscape, and who, in fact, is involved in the socio-cultural design of local spaces? But all these themes can only be grasped through thoughtful immersion in the pictorial messages; when you come to the exhibition, you first simply find yourself on a visual honeymoon in Alanya.

During the residency, artist Yulia Zhivichina worked on the sculpture "Border Guard". This work is dedicated to the theme of personal boundaries.

The artist believes that a person who violates another's boundaries usually does not do it out of malice. Usually, he thinks that he knows everything, that his advice or opinion is really necessary for everyone.

But the main thing is that his boundaries are also violated, because with his behavior he attracts into life exactly the same people as himself. It turns out to be a vicious circle of mutual invasion into each other's safe space.

The artist sees such a person as a fragile, vulnerable, tender creature, who, due to his misunderstanding, pierces others with the hard and sharp spear of his ignorance, but he himself is always pierced.

The spherical sculpture of a human head with a wire frame is an illustration of protection on the one hand, and a metaphor for a rink that people who violate boundaries roll over us with iron force on the other. The face is made of gray clay, and inside is soft pink slime, symbolizing tenderness, gentleness and vulnerability.

"The Light of the Setting Sun" // Concept For most of the year we live in the absence of sun, light; it gets dark early and gets light late. That is why I intuitively want to prolong or recreate a certain "light" that will fill and charge during the "permafrost" of the gray everyday life of a long winter, which begins in our region in October and ends in April.

In my artistic practice I work with the theme of the borderline and marginality of the state of space and people. Geese play an important role in my world.

For me, the goose is a multifaceted and very important character. For the Egyptians, the arrival of geese meant the rebirth of the Sun, they bring warmth with them. The goose also brings incredible absurdity and makes everything around it strange.

For the northerners (Celts, Germans, Slavs), the departure of geese meant the end of summer, and their return was a harbinger of spring: they seem to carry warmth with them. In this project, I consider geese and their presence in space as direct sources of light, pink light. In Russian symbolism, pink is the color of dreams, the color of hope, hope for an imminent spring. Entering the space, the viewer is saturated and charged with the energy of the outgoing light, like a battery charge that should last until the next spring return of the geese.