Talente 2012
Marina Elenskaya was awarded Talente prize for her graduation work About Belonging. In her series 'About Belonging' Marina Elenskaya explores the city environment and its hidden beauty.
The starting point was her observation that much of the city’s everyday gems are no longer being perceived, because we have become accustomed to them. Being interested in the unnoticed and overlooked, Marina Elenskaya took the city’s life of the people and things and started documenting them. In her jewelry she makes use of these observations and associations to combine these aspects of the city. Use of car safety glass, bicycle inner tubes, concrete, metal, plywood - materials that appear raw and unprocessed in terms of jewellery - seem appropriate as being part of the city. The closures and connections used are solutions that appeal to the logic of the city: not for their aesthetics, but rather for being practical and quick. The work is unusual in its material and construction: bits of broken car glass are molded in a hollow form, lined with silicone, suspended by a bicycle tube.
It's delightful to witness the contrast between the actual function - the protection of the car glass - and its new visual appearance, made pliable by the silicon. The work's surfaces, textures and colors inspire affection and mystery.
Text by Michaela Braesel (translated from German by CLA van der Kaap)
Benedikt Fischer at temporarystedelijk.com
Nhat-Vu Dang
OPEN DAY 27 January 2012
