Marina Dyakonova, photographer.

The series is ongoing....

The series is ongoing....

В соавторстве с Аллой Мировской, Юлией Голубовой, Натальей Дюрич, Александрой Малышевой, Еленой Сакирко.

Выставка-интервенция «Не будите Герцена».

Идея пришла почти год назад, когда Олег Бородин обмолвился, что в нашем доме (Мастерские общества «Знание» на Покровке) жил Герцен. Это и заставило нашу компанию любителей фотокниг (клуб Самиздат на Покровке) пуститься в изыскания с желанием сначала сделать тематический зин, а потом и выставку-интервенцию (аппетиты растут быстро). В итоге все поменялось местами: сначала будет выставка, а потом зин.

Выставка — сайт-специфик проект, делалась специально для конкретного места, этого дома в Армянском переулке в Москве, где в детстве жил Герцен, и не может быть повторена. Надо сказать, что судьба Александра Ивановича, вынужденного почти половину жизни прожить за границей, особенно актуальна сегодня. Долгое время его личность скрывалась за маской идеолога социализма, ловко натянутой на него советской историей. Мы пытаемся отделить миф от человека и вернуть его себе и Москве.

Автор текста Алла Мировская

"All types of needlework help relieve tension, calm the nerves, and prevent stress. When a woman picks up sewing or knitting — the entire house is filled with peace and tranquility" — this is the beginning of an article from a popular publication for women. Contemporary wisdom says that so-called women's labor power is healing. One in every three people suffer from anxiety or compulsive thoughts and irrational fears.

The majority of people who suffer from anxiety disorders are women. Today such disorders can usually be treated medically. However, before medical therapy, people commonly found therapy in handiwork. Simple and conventional work with a little bit of creativity is one of a few methods recognized by psychiatrists used to treat anxiety.

Scientific medicine does not separate the therapeutic handiwork of men and women, because that would not be scientific. Nevertheless, references provided in professional literature illustrate a distinct gender division, even for handiwork that heals. Productive labor is for men, decorative one — for women.

The woman becomes the decorative object in art and she has been serving as a muse to artists for centuries. According to the history of art, there are four times more portraits of women than men. The goal of my project is to merge two conventional stories of women: portraits and decorative handiwork.

The project "The Texture of Fear" is an attempt to fight off fears by shaping them and tracing their images. It is a combination of photography on canvas and handiwork, which requires working not only with an image but with its medium as well. For each portrait, I applied different types of handiwork that fully comply with the principles of labor therapy: simplicity, convention, and creativity.

The project contains eight canvases on an 80x60 cm frame. The photo is made via jet printing. The different portraits feature different types of handiwork and canvas techniques.

Cenotaph is a memorial on a place of death, symbolic grave without remains.
It's an Ancient Greek tradition since it was considered that everyone deserves stone engraving
even if the body is not there.

Nowadays cenotaphs are constructed in the places of mass deaths due to local conflicts,
technogenic catastrophes and other artificial reasons.
Also memorials emerge on the places of resonant death of some famous person.
But there are cenotaphs of unknown people too.
On the roadsides we could see handmade artefacts dedicated to traffic accidents.

This is not Russia specific
but in Russia this became cultural phenomenon in the early post-Soviet era.
It relates to gradual increase of car owners and to loss of traditional religious rite of mourning.

Roadside cenotaphs consists either of obituary symbols: grave crosses, stone monuments,
synthetic flowers (in Russia plastic flowers is the attribute of grave)
as of elements of cars and motorbikes that was scattered after crash.
Cenotaph is always vivid because it has to be seeable by drivers on the road;
this is not only the sign of sorrow but silent revolt against non-safety road traffic.

Recently, after year 2010 roadside cenotaphs little by little become scarce.
New ones are rare, old ones abandoned and ruined.
Even though some constructions are supported for decades
sooner or later they will disappear or become very rare.
The "Cenotaph" series is my attempt to save memory about this Russian phenomenon.

The project "Cenotaph" is still ongoing.

Vilhelm Hammershoi — Danish painter from the late 19th early 20th century.
Representative of Danish symbolism.
Usually he is considered as interior painter since the majority of his works
depict cold and severe North Europe interiors.
But there are people on his paintings too.
They don't look straight from the canvas, they are look aside or even stood or sit backwards

What if Hammershoi painted not interiors but portraits?
People on his portraits don't look at spectators as people in real life don't look at each other very often.

My daughter Kira is thirteen and she rarely looks at me. And rarely talks to me.
Big kids try to live on their own.
Kira doesn't depend much on her mother and she has a lot of her own things to do.
She communicates via social networks with her friends rather than family.
May be this is evolution of growing-up.
The "Silence" is the series of my daughter portraits, about her separation from her mother,
the attempt to transform the Hammershoi style into photographs.

"In uniform" series dedicated to elementary schoolgirls (7-11 years old), their growing up and formation in society.
Series was created during years 2013-2014.
In year 2013 school uniform became obligatory in Russian schools.
School uniform could differ from one school to another but the principle of strict dress code is the same.
Girls conform to formal outwear that affect their personalities and vice versa adjust the formal reality to themselves.

Marina Dyakonova
Photographer and photo-based artist.
Based in Moscow, Russia

Born on 12.02.1981

Education:
From 2023 until now, «BAZA».
2019-2021 DocDocDoc, School of Modern Photography.
2006-2012 Moscow Institute of Journalism, Faculty of Photo-journalism.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS:
2023. Where I am? Where is Russia? St. Petersburg, Russia
2023. Don't wake up Herzen. Moscow, Russia
2022. Portraits – Hellerau Photography Award. Berlin, Gemany
2022. The Portrait. F-STOP MAGAZINE. Online
2022. Portraits – Hellerau Photography Award. Dresden, Germany
2022. Argus. Photography among the arts. Sochi, Russia
2021. Pole Telesnosti. DK Rosy. St. Petersburg, Russia
2021. Narrative Portraits. ArtDocMagazine. Online
2017. Portraits Without Faces. PH21 Gallery. Budapest, Hungary

SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
2021. The Texture of Fear. NiiSreda. Moscow, Russia
2021. The Texture of Fear. Art Space Point. Moscow, Russia

GRANTS AND COMPETITIONS:
2022. Portraits – Hellerau Photography Award. Finalist
2022. Argus. Photography among the arts. Honorable mention
2017. Portraits Without Faces. PH21 Gallery. Honorable mention

Marina Dyakonova
e-mail: marina@marinadyakonova.com
Facebook / Instagram