1986
Educations:
Joseph Backstein Institute of Contemporary Art (current time)
Sholokhov Moscow State University for Humanities (2008)
Art College №61 (2003)
Curatorial projects
«Mercury Retrograde» (2024), Zverevsky Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow
«… A day in the Macabray month» (2024), Moscow
«To be here» (2024), Moscow
Festivals and Exhibitions
«Mercury Retrograde» (2024), Zverevsky Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow
VIDEOFORMES (2025), international hybrid and digital arts festival, Clermont-Ferrand, France
11th Cairo Video Festival (2024), Cairo, Egypt
«Waves, streams, fields, clouds» (2024), CCI «Fabrika», Moscow
«To be here» (2024), Moscow
VIDEOFORMES (2024), international hybrid and digital arts festival, Clermont-Ferrand, France
«Restore: Everything is possible» (2023), Moscow,
Artist talks and conferences:
«Artists-run organizations and local art projects: here and now» (2024), Moscow
«Restore: Everything is possible» (2024), artist talk
«Theories and practices of art and design: sociocultural, economic and political contexts» (2024), international conference: «The hauntology of the ideas: collage in contemporary art and graphic design»
Founder, curator and artist of NoNameForNow
Educations:
Joseph Backstein Institute of Contemporary Art (current time)
Sholokhov Moscow State University for Humanities (2008)
Art College №61 (2003)
Curatorial projects
«Mercury Retrograde» (2024), Zverevsky Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow
«… A day in the Macabray month» (2024), Moscow
«To be here» (2024), Moscow
Festivals and Exhibitions
«Mercury Retrograde» (2024), Zverevsky Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow
VIDEOFORMES (2025), international hybrid and digital arts festival, Clermont-Ferrand, France
11th Cairo Video Festival (2024), Cairo, Egypt
«Waves, streams, fields, clouds» (2024), CCI «Fabrika», Moscow
«To be here» (2024), Moscow
VIDEOFORMES (2024), international hybrid and digital arts festival, Clermont-Ferrand, France
«Restore: Everything is possible» (2023), Moscow,
Artist talks and conferences:
«Artists-run organizations and local art projects: here and now» (2024), Moscow
«Restore: Everything is possible» (2024), artist talk
«Theories and practices of art and design: sociocultural, economic and political contexts» (2024), international conference: «The hauntology of the ideas: collage in contemporary art and graphic design»
Founder, curator and artist of NoNameForNow
Interviews
«... A day in the Macabray month»: a ghost exhibition on the territory of a former pioneer camp / ARTUzel
Irina Kulik, Natalia Konyukova and Polly T: how «hauntology» can be implemented in acontemporary art exhibition / Art and you
The «To be here» project / ARTUzel
«We are studying the border zone, not yet urban, but no longer natural» / MyDecor
Site-specific exhibition «To be here»: reflections on the boundaries of the city and nature / Obyedinenie
Participation in publications
«Land art in Russia: a chronology of events», Elena Guseva, chapter «Present time. Art parks, festivals. 2010-2025»
«... A day in the Macabray month»: a ghost exhibition on the territory of a former pioneer camp / ARTUzel
Irina Kulik, Natalia Konyukova and Polly T: how «hauntology» can be implemented in acontemporary art exhibition / Art and you
The «To be here» project / ARTUzel
«We are studying the border zone, not yet urban, but no longer natural» / MyDecor
Site-specific exhibition «To be here»: reflections on the boundaries of the city and nature / Obyedinenie
Participation in publications
«Land art in Russia: a chronology of events», Elena Guseva, chapter «Present time. Art parks, festivals. 2010-2025»
«… A DAY IN THE MACABRAY MONTH»*
1 november – 1 december 2024,
Art space of park hotel « White Lanes»
Curators: Irina Kulik, PollyT, Natalya Konyukova
The former pioneer camp, on the territory of which the park-hotel «White Alleys» is located, is an ideal place for telling scary stories and celebrating Halloween.
But we rethink this holiday in the spirit of «Macabray» from Neil Gaiman’s novel «The Graveyard Book», which is not tied to any seasonal dates, and imagine a day when the living meet and dance without fear with the deceased, who have come not to reproach, but to support them — which, however, the living, unlike the deceased, forget about the next day.
We propose interpreting ghost stories in the spirit of «hauntology». The neologism «hauntology» (from the English haunt — ghost, ontology — being) was proposed in 1993 by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. In his book «Specters of Marx» he writes that after the collapse of the USSR, communism did not die, but became a ghost, which, as in the Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, is again wandering around Europe, and Derrida likens this ghost to the Ghost of Hamlet’s father. In the 2000s, «hauntology» was rethought by the English thinker Mark Fisher, who linked it with cinema and electronic music. In his book «Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures,» Fisher writes about the obsession with the idea of «lost possible futures», about being trapped in the eternal, uncontested present of capitalism and consumer society.
1 november – 1 december 2024,
Art space of park hotel « White Lanes»
Curators: Irina Kulik, PollyT, Natalya Konyukova
The former pioneer camp, on the territory of which the park-hotel «White Alleys» is located, is an ideal place for telling scary stories and celebrating Halloween.
But we rethink this holiday in the spirit of «Macabray» from Neil Gaiman’s novel «The Graveyard Book», which is not tied to any seasonal dates, and imagine a day when the living meet and dance without fear with the deceased, who have come not to reproach, but to support them — which, however, the living, unlike the deceased, forget about the next day.
We propose interpreting ghost stories in the spirit of «hauntology». The neologism «hauntology» (from the English haunt — ghost, ontology — being) was proposed in 1993 by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. In his book «Specters of Marx» he writes that after the collapse of the USSR, communism did not die, but became a ghost, which, as in the Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, is again wandering around Europe, and Derrida likens this ghost to the Ghost of Hamlet’s father. In the 2000s, «hauntology» was rethought by the English thinker Mark Fisher, who linked it with cinema and electronic music. In his book «Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures,» Fisher writes about the obsession with the idea of «lost possible futures», about being trapped in the eternal, uncontested present of capitalism and consumer society.
Hauntology is not a synonym for all-consuming nostalgia, but a return to the past in order to find in it a now forgotten idea of the future.
We propose to invite the ghosts of the lost future — modernist and avant-garde, social or science fiction — to dance.
ARTISTS:
Katherina Alimova, Mitya Grankov, Dima Gred, Pavel Zudanov, Natalya Konyukova, Anton Kuznetsov, Alexey Luka, Maria Safronova, Dima Filippov, Angelina Ushko, Ekaterina Shafir and EldarGaneev.
*Neil Geiman's The Macabray, a dance between the dead and the living.
Website
We propose to invite the ghosts of the lost future — modernist and avant-garde, social or science fiction — to dance.
ARTISTS:
Katherina Alimova, Mitya Grankov, Dima Gred, Pavel Zudanov, Natalya Konyukova, Anton Kuznetsov, Alexey Luka, Maria Safronova, Dima Filippov, Angelina Ushko, Ekaterina Shafir and EldarGaneev.
*Neil Geiman's The Macabray, a dance between the dead and the living.
Website
| «TOMORROW» ISN’T PROMISED FOR US» 2024 video, 04:07 «Will your life be like Coney Island, an amusement park with a billion candles.» And hasn’t this really become an everyday occurrence? Tomorrow is not promised. «Tomorrow» is only concept for a calendar. Life goes on as usual — if you want to stay for one more, just don’t leave the cinema. An eternal amusement park that embodies the dream of an amazing life, as well as the most exciting disaster for the most discerning taste. A billion candles, and if one would falls — so what? Any fire is rehearsed in advance here. The video uses a small excerpt from Leonid Utesov’s song «Steamboat» Video – participant of the 11th edition of Cairo Video Festival (catalogue) and exhibition «Waves, streams, fields, clouds» (catalogue) |
| «VICTORY OVER THE SUN» 2024 video, 06:26 It happens far from everything — in a sea of deserts or in a desert of the sea. A huge, scorching, blinding sun rises. And it is false. You can live under it until it disappears, you can try to build a route along it — and get lost, because it does not live by the coordinates of our reality. One hundred and one year ago, the Budetlyans rose up against the sun of the Iron Age — and defeated it. "There will be no end!" And what will happen? A landmark is needed for directed movement. Which sun rose above the horizon? The old one or the one invented by those lost ones, the False sun? The scorching heat does not allow you to clearly see the surroundings. A mirage of a luminary is possible only where there is nothing to rely on, where it is difficult to see — and the thirst for light is so great that you can be seduced by any promise, any conviction, any words, so strong is the need to fill the emptiness around. In the stricken universe of the future, it is dark without new Budetlyans. You cannot go far in this darkness. How do you know that the sunrise will become real? It is difficult to navigate the world of victory over the sun. Video – participant of the VIDEOFORMES (2025), international hybrid and digital arts festival, Clermont-Ferrand, France, and exhibition «Waves, streams, fields, clouds» (catalogue) |
| «TOTO, I'VE A FEELING WE'RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE» 2024 video, 03:59 The space we know is something between our step and the time it takes. These relationships are new every time. One step can include fractions of a second, and years between others. It seems that if you walk for a long time, you go far, but if nothing around you changes, and you yourself are the same, then there was no movement. «So much water has flowed under the bridge» - and how much? Time has become so unclear. What happened two weeks ago is the same as two years ago, it is equally difficult to remember. Memory, step and time move human figures capriciously and imprecisely. Almost half an hour is made up of almost forty years. Unbearably long, threateningly fast. And then - just stand up, and immediately new steps. Video – participant of the exhibition «Waves, streams, fields, clouds» catalogue |
«TO BE HERE» 2024
11 august – 22 september 2024,
Near Moscow
Curators: PollyT, Vera Ershova
Expert Council: Dmitri Gutov, Viktor Miziano, Stanislav Shuripa
At the edge of geography, the familiar ends. For some, the familiar is the urban environment, for others, the natural one. In the space of an abandoned building on the border of the city and the forest, the project participants reconsider their position in relation to once familiar coordinates. Here, new relationships are built with the world, which is no longer measured by distances, but has turned into a topological space where everything is adjacent to everything. And this has made it even more vulnerable. What is happening in this border, almost «twilight» zone?
What forces does this concrete cube become a meeting point for? An outpost of whose side? Does it act as a space for the interpenetration of the human and the non-human, a place for the search for new forms of co-existence, or, on the contrary, is it the epicenter of confrontation?
This space is a search for an answer: can we allow nature to be neither a resource nor a decoration, but to hear it as an equal subject with human rights, including the right to vote. We find ourselves on the edge of the relationship between the man-made and the natural in an illusory, but at the same time very specific space. What does it mean for us to «be here»?
11 august – 22 september 2024,
Near Moscow
Curators: PollyT, Vera Ershova
Expert Council: Dmitri Gutov, Viktor Miziano, Stanislav Shuripa
At the edge of geography, the familiar ends. For some, the familiar is the urban environment, for others, the natural one. In the space of an abandoned building on the border of the city and the forest, the project participants reconsider their position in relation to once familiar coordinates. Here, new relationships are built with the world, which is no longer measured by distances, but has turned into a topological space where everything is adjacent to everything. And this has made it even more vulnerable. What is happening in this border, almost «twilight» zone?
What forces does this concrete cube become a meeting point for? An outpost of whose side? Does it act as a space for the interpenetration of the human and the non-human, a place for the search for new forms of co-existence, or, on the contrary, is it the epicenter of confrontation?
This space is a search for an answer: can we allow nature to be neither a resource nor a decoration, but to hear it as an equal subject with human rights, including the right to vote. We find ourselves on the edge of the relationship between the man-made and the natural in an illusory, but at the same time very specific space. What does it mean for us to «be here»?
ARTISTS:
Galolbo, Danil Danot, PollyT, homoabsurdus, Olga Bozhko, Oksana Vinogradova, R&w Flowers, Dmitri Gutov, Vera Ershova, Pavel Zudanov, Elena Izvolskaya, Svetlana Kalashnikova, Polina Krutova,Denis and Nataluya Lotarev, Natalya Mezheritskaya, Svetlana Metso, Anastasiya Myachina, Sasha Nesterkina, Julia Parfenova, Lubov Remizova, Anna Salimzyanova, Sasha Sorokina, Natalia Struchkova, Alena Troitskaya, Angelina Ushko, Dmitri Chuyko, Katya Goryacheva, Sasha Krivoshapkin, Grisha Joy, Julia Baranuk, Anna Nechaeva, Maria Bast, Masha Vsyo-taki, NastaKedrovskaya
Website
Galolbo, Danil Danot, PollyT, homoabsurdus, Olga Bozhko, Oksana Vinogradova, R&w Flowers, Dmitri Gutov, Vera Ershova, Pavel Zudanov, Elena Izvolskaya, Svetlana Kalashnikova, Polina Krutova,Denis and Nataluya Lotarev, Natalya Mezheritskaya, Svetlana Metso, Anastasiya Myachina, Sasha Nesterkina, Julia Parfenova, Lubov Remizova, Anna Salimzyanova, Sasha Sorokina, Natalia Struchkova, Alena Troitskaya, Angelina Ushko, Dmitri Chuyko, Katya Goryacheva, Sasha Krivoshapkin, Grisha Joy, Julia Baranuk, Anna Nechaeva, Maria Bast, Masha Vsyo-taki, NastaKedrovskaya
Website
| A frozen spiral — and a yellow sea surrounded by skyscrapers, a forest cathedral and a field of lightning. What is this? Iconic works of artists or a background for a selfie? We look at the world through the lens of a phone, thinking that as long as we can distinguish ourselves in this motley of frames, we exist. We definitely need photographs of what is happening, a record of every step, because it seems that if there is no documentation of the moment, then it did not happen. At what point do we begin to dissolve in this background? Without the desire to examine and contemplate, you can lose yourself in the kaleidoscope of the surroundings. The only way to be here is to see everything around you anew. To feel the spaces once created by others, to recalculate the annual rings on the river, to count each of the 15 works of concrete. To perceive reality and its objects here and now, without putting them away in the archive of phone memory. In video you can see and hear «Popcorn» by «Hot Butter» «Spiral Jetty» (Robert Smithson), «Wheatfield — A Confrontation» (Agnes Denes), «Repellent Fence» (Postcommodity), «Double Negative» (Michael Heizer), «The Green Cathedral» (Marinus Boezem), «Green river» (Olafur Eliasson), «Sun Tunnels» (Nancy Holt), «7000 Oaks» (Joseph Beuys), «Edziri Station, Provinz Suruga» (Hokusai), «15 untitled works in concrete» (Donald Judd), «The Lightning Field» (Walter De Maria), «Seven Magic Mountains» (Ugo Rondinone), "Walking Wall"(Andy Goldsworthy), «Annual Rings» (Dennis Oppenheim), «White canoe» (Peter Doig) Video – participant of the project «To be here» |
| «WHAT IS IT?/ MY BIOGRAPHY» 2023 Video, 02:36 This video is about my personal experience from a past that will not go away, and a person being raised according to strict ideals that disappeared about forty years ago. My only escape from this world put me in terrible despair — I was terrified, what if I can’t breathe «Here and Now.» Video – participant of the exhibition «Waves, streams, fields, clouds» catalogue Some people are like hermit crabs. They find a shell on their own, hide in it, sealing themselves tightly in their favourite piece of history. And they don’t care that life goes on. They chew their own eternal — maybe they chew time, maybe they chew you. This is a personal experience related to the enduring past. In the shell house where I grew up, forgotten at the bottom of the old Khrushchev aquarium, the time of the uncertain 1960s reigned, where avant-garde and nonconformism were impossible. In comparison with my peers, I was forever outdated — my air, my films, my books were completely different. Life was going on somewhere out there, free, outside the aquarium, without mud. But she was there. And here the birds were chirping in their cages, the icon of Shishkin hung and stories for the children of Bonch-Bruevich were the gospel. Travelling through time requires a state of extreme despair, because when you break your aquarium, it is very scary to be among those fish that cannot breathe in this «here and now». PollyT |
| Our life now is life in the world of ideas. This sounds very lofty until you realize that in most cases «idea» means the absence of something. The desire to possess an idea becomes almost sectarian, and the expectation of instant miracles in exchange for this desire takes people back to the ancestors of maypole dancing, where a promise sounds like an endless song, and at the end an ultimatum will be put forward — «ЧУ-ДИ», what means «Make a miracle!». Make a miracle, make a miracle right now. Prove yourself. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Make a miracle! The idea of music is its absence, a hint of sound through subtitles, the idea of optimism is a demand for the best, and in the end there is nothing in the hands, only an eternal round dance in the confidence of the possession of absence. Video – participant of the VIDEOFORMES (2024), international hybrid and digital arts festival, Clermont-Ferrand, France (catalogue) |
«YOU ARE SO SWEET, HONEY, I SWEAR I COULD EAT YOU! OR NINE CIRCLES OF LOVE». 2023-2024
Video series
(work in progress)
The project consists of videos that explore the different stages of domestic violence, hidden under the words «true parental love», distorting the sense of the world. Each video examines one manifestation, one circle of deforming «love».
Through the prism of the family, one can consider much larger problems, such as the issue of distribution and pursuit of resources, personal responsibility and the boundaries of a loved one. However, an important difference is the different passage of time: in contrast to the linearity of life, the time of the characters in the video moves in a circle. There is no and cannot be a future for them.
These circles of «love» are not only Dantean, they turn
to folklore motifs of witch circles. A person caught in them can spend centuries there, not only unable to get out, but also unwilling to do so, subdued by deceptively sweet speeches that lead to an eternal search for his own «face».
Videos – participants of the exhibition «Waves, streams, fields, clouds»
Catalogue
Video series
(work in progress)
The project consists of videos that explore the different stages of domestic violence, hidden under the words «true parental love», distorting the sense of the world. Each video examines one manifestation, one circle of deforming «love».
Through the prism of the family, one can consider much larger problems, such as the issue of distribution and pursuit of resources, personal responsibility and the boundaries of a loved one. However, an important difference is the different passage of time: in contrast to the linearity of life, the time of the characters in the video moves in a circle. There is no and cannot be a future for them.
These circles of «love» are not only Dantean, they turn
to folklore motifs of witch circles. A person caught in them can spend centuries there, not only unable to get out, but also unwilling to do so, subdued by deceptively sweet speeches that lead to an eternal search for his own «face».
Videos – participants of the exhibition «Waves, streams, fields, clouds»
Catalogue
«Sometimes they beat
Sometimes they yell
And sometimes they love it so much that they would just eat you
And they do so
People who are attached to it live on the earth.
Open people usually get attached.
Usually obligated people are tied up.
Combine both points, catch your kid, open all his personal doors — and he will be weak, deceived, looking for your rope. He will even help you to make it himself.
It’s so simple...»
PollyT
Sometimes they yell
And sometimes they love it so much that they would just eat you
And they do so
People who are attached to it live on the earth.
Open people usually get attached.
Usually obligated people are tied up.
Combine both points, catch your kid, open all his personal doors — and he will be weak, deceived, looking for your rope. He will even help you to make it himself.
It’s so simple...»
PollyT
| «YOU ARE SO SWEET, HONEY, I SWEAR I COULD EAT YOU! OR NINE CIRCLES OF LOVE» «Candy bites». 2024 video, 02:48 The issue of co-participation is acute. A person can be an accomplice unwittingly, following the expectations of society, without thinking about how his behavior determines the state of the recipient. A person can be an accomplice voluntarily, knowing the responsibility taken upon himself and enjoying it. Belonging to a supported authority raises awareness of one’s self-importance. An innocent piece of candy served on the playground becomes the equivalent of acceptance, and therefore a scale of worthiness, a symbol of manipulation and intimidation. Unloved children don't have any candy. It becomes a hook on which children are caught, thrown by friendly neighbors, and someone’s kindly grandmothers, and very distant relatives. They called it «Candy bite». And this candy is really bites. And God, that bite wasn’t harmless. Candy cling to the fingers painfully — and you can’t get them off. And it’s not necessary, they say. And it is not necessary! Help yourself. Take it more! And they give more. And they forget. PollyT |
| «YOU ARE SO SWEET, HONEY, I SWEAR I COULD EAT YOU! OR NINE CIRCLES OF LOVE» «Eat fast, when your family big». 2024 Video, 01:28 The problem of having food and resources comes down to the question — who have right for it? Who can use it? The motif of poisoned food in witch circles is being reconstructed in folklore in nowadays, in a new way — they poison not food, but the thought that you could eat it. There will always be someone who has more rights to food. The problem of resources, the problem of food, is not so much that there is not enough of something, but the fact is that many do not have the right to this even at the family table. In big the family needs a bigger beak. Constant refusal leads to the habitual feeling of hunger that it stops notice — and those who, out of habit, look at the common family salad, and those who move the dish further away. No rights to food. There is no right to hunger. How many tasty things here! Eat it! Eat! This is not for you. This is not for you either. Eat it! Or all of it will rot soon. Eat it all! eat it all! This is not for you, but you have to eat it all! Is this rotten now? Doesn't matter. Eat. Eat. Eat PollyT |
| «YOU ARE SO SWEET, HONEY, I SWEAR I COULD EAT YOU! OR NINE CIRCLES OF LOVE» «Suspension points». 2024 Video, 01:15 Anxiety is a feeling of not being in control of the world. In an attempt to find comfort, rituals are created, but they do not work — the world is still unpredictable. The family puts forward one person to the position of responsibility (extremely defenseless, kid) — and regardless of whether it was possible to predict what was happening or not, this someone will bear the responsibility. An endless, multiple coming moment of reckoning for the dangerous unpredictability of the environment. Nothing can be known in advance, but still be responsible for everything that happens. You must know everything. You are good. You are ours. If you are not good, you are not ours. Why didn't you guess here? You are not ours? Don't hide. They will find you. Something is about to happen. Right now. Or tomorrow. But it will definitely happen. What exactly? You must know. You are good. You are ours. Are you ours? PollyT |
| «YOU ARE SO SWEET, HONEY, I SWEAR I COULD EAT YOU! OR NINE CIRCLES OF LOVE» «No pain — no gain». 2024 Video, 01:15 To be able to endure and overcome are good qualities. But the distorted family world deforms them, putting up the question «how much? How long?» How long can you hold out? How much can you tolerate? Manipulative disregard for personal boundaries sounds cheerful, like overcoming, like expanding one’s capabilities. As a way to grow. This removes the life-saving walls between person and the world — and in the end the first finds himself literally skinless and alone face to face with the second. And even this can be praised — after all, as they say, all sensitive natures are skinless. Now you are one of these types. You’ll probably be a poet. You need to wash well. You need to wash yourself heartily. The skin should squeak from cleanliness. And it doesn't matter if there is no skin left, but you are not an unwashed chimney sweep. It doesn't matter that you can't touch anything, but it is not a shame or disgrace. No pain - no gain Everything is worth enduring. PollyT |
| «YOU ARE SO SWEET, HONEY, I SWEAR I COULD EAT YOU! OR NINE CIRCLES OF LOVE» «Candy bites». 2024 video, 01:06 It is critical to be able to live with yourself. To do this, it is important to realize your importance. But what if everyone reduces importance to the ability to be good, and the ability to be good to the ability to be comfortable? Make the all-consuming desire to be good dependent on praise, and there will be nothing that a person would not do to just to receive it. An endless thirst for a glance, an endless thirst for a positive assessment — and a person no longer has any strength to notice deception. Spin is fun. It’s almost a merry-go-round! The fun doesn’t end, even if you do. Good people always help. Good people are always loved If you are bad, you will not be loved Want to be good? Do Want to be good? Give Turn around - it's fun It's almost a merry-go-round! The fun never ends - even if you do. You are good. You'll grow back. PollyT |
