Dust to Dust | Part II: The Domestic

Dust to Dust | Part II: The Domestic

7 - 12 June 2019
Fox Street Studios
Glasgow, UK

Domestic labour is marked by immediate encounters with the everyday. In the home, what is necessary and practical becomes ritualised, socialised, sentimentalised. Repetitive noises soothe us, daily routines stabilise us. For women especially, household rituals offered a sense of determinate being; a rootedness in the world and its physicality that makes for an interdependent sense of self.

The idea of being in the home can in some ways be thought of as being-towards-death¹. The visual language of the domestic communicates a greater heritage, a longer human narrative immortalised in patterns and surfaces. Dirt and dust collect only to be beaten and swept out ceremoniously, suspending for a moment the tendency towards decay. From dust you are born and to dust you will return.

In this multimedia installation, Katerina Sidorova examines the collective longing for authenticity as reflected in domestic motifs. Mass-produced materials are juxtaposed to evoke a blurry, unplaceable notion of tradition. At last, the illusion of craftsmanship unravels, leaving a collection of empty signifiers in its place.

_{1. In Heideggerian philosophy, being-towards-death, or Dasein, alludes to human beings’ unique awareness of morality and the subconscious effect this has on existence.}

List of works:

DUST TO DUST (The Rack). Scaffold, found synthetic carpet.

Bring Your Own Rug. Performance documentation and found footage. 1 channel video, 5.59min. Filmed in Glasgow, UK.

DUST TO DUST. 1 channel video, 6.00min. Filmed in Yaroslavl, Russia.

The Beaters. Binaural audio, 4.00min. Mixed by Niels van Ruiten.

The Domestic (Chair), 2019. Ceramic tiles on board. 25 x 15 x 2 cm.

Bathroom of the year II, 2019. Fake tiles on board. 31 x 26 x 2 cm.

The Domestic (Carpet), 2019. Ceramic tiles on board. 20 x 10 x 2 cm.

The Domestic (Ladder), 2019. Ceramic tiles on board. 25 x 15 x 2 cm.

The Domestic (Ties the room), 2019. Ceramic tiles on board. 30 x 12 x 2 cm.

WASH AND DRY. Limited edition print, washing line.