Margarita Varakina is a visual artist based in Moscow. In her practice, she works with behavioural models and social self-identification in the post-Soviet space. Varakina reinterprets the phenomenon of excessive or eclectic interior decor through researching spontaneous aesthetic systems that are influenced by mass culture, and kitsch. Her projects work as a way to bring together viewers from different social groups.
Recommended by Alexandra Kuznetsova
The New Greenery series, 2019. This project subverts a traditional decoration—painting on cut wood logs—by replacing the usual landscapes with post-industrial (sub)urban scenes
The New Greenery series, 2019. Varakina sees the green colour of service buildings as an attempt at mimicking trees and plants: they are the new flora of our cities
S-system “Tree,” 2019. The installation is made of fragments of shelves from apartment buildings where plants are usually placed. There are crochet napkins on these shelves, whose fractal ornaments copy the microscopic image tree cells
S-system “Tree,” 2019. The project analyses the late-Soviet practice of placing plants in non-residential places
S-system “Tree,” 2019
Through the Looking Glass and Back, 2019. By putting photorealistic fragments of public spaces—corridors and stairs—on mirrors, Varakina draws the attention of the viewer to the spaces that are often ignored
Through the Looking Glass and Back, 2019. Uncovered mirrors reflect the viewer, putting them into these spaces
Outliving, 2019
