medical plastic, body corpse bags | The work was created especially for the exhibition Sense of Safety. / 2024
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The black witch's hair beckons, wafting with magic... The Cyrillic letters forming the word "По-домашнєму" (Eng.: homey) descend on the hair strands. In her new work, Alina Kleytman creates a shimmering realm - an enigmatic and inescapable world of black magic, where enchantment rituals are performed somewhere on the other side of the letters or in the thickness of the shadows.
This is part of a larger project, Endless Shine of Human Violence, in which the artist reflects on the complexity of the human psyche, the essence of violence and war. Against all odds, despite the vows of each new generation to "never again," wars and violence are returning to our homes.
"Homey" encapsulates all the ambivalence of the concept of security around which the exhibition is built. Today, in the context of war, when every home is at risk, it is still home that remains an important stronghold, a place of strength and support, despite all the horrors that are happening to it. The notion of home does not stand up to evaluation; on the contrary, it reserves the right to inviolable security.
The phrase itself, this long pronounced "po-domashnemu" that has become a meme, was taken from the famous viral video of a Crimean woman who has been "indigenous" since 2014.
Home and occupation, domestication of the occupied, migration, staying or leaving-these are all complex constructs in which Alina Kleytman is primarily interested in the relationship between the value of human life and private cases and situations within the context of large political narratives and events.
The work impresses with its tangibility. It is made of medical plastic and body corpse bags, which, when heated, envelop the metal frame of the sculpture. Material originally designed for protection during injury, trauma, and death-often serving as a temporary or for some as an eternal coffin-is transformed into an artistic statement. Through the magical fairy tale, deliberate tactility, and the jungle of domesticated forests, this work reveals the inherent human need to walk on a razor's edge, to feel the edge of life itself, risking one's safety to create it for others.