Maria Nikitina. Plastic 16+ Automatic translate

Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art presents an exhibition of St. Petersburg photographer Maria Nikitina, who brings canonized pictorial images into the world of disposable items

• Plastic bag, cotton swab, disposable cup as the protagonists of photographic portraits
• Connecting the momentary and meaningless with the heights of the human spirit
• Reflections on urban and visual ecology

A series of photographs by Maria Nikitina presented at the exhibition in Erarta is inspired by the current environmental agenda. The key image of each image is a scourge and threat to the environment; the main characters of the portraits are, first of all, a plastic bag, a cotton swab, a disposable cup, and only then a canonized pictorial image. “I wanted to approach the problem aesthetically, to try to make it so that, looking at the photograph, a person wondered what he could personally do to reduce the amount of garbage,” the author explains.

The impulse to create an art project containing a call for conscious consumption, Maria was given a creative task for staged shooting in a photography school. The very idea of ​​such performances has a long-standing "glossy" tradition. However, during the period of self-isolation, not only actors and pop stars donned clothes from Renaissance portraits: the network flash mob that swept the world transformed the prisoners of quarantine into “living pictures”.

The works of Maria Nikitina are prompting reflections on how eternal images of art can turn into the garbage of mass culture. Why is the image of a man screaming on a bridge used again and again in advertising when discounts are mentioned? Why are serious and profound works endlessly replicated on postcards, magnets, posters? In the author’s photographs, aggressive plastic threatens not only the ecology of cities, but also the visual ecology. Maria connects what is happening here and now, garbage and meaningless with the heights of the human spirit - with dramatic, sometimes even tragically elevated images. The special charm of the project lies in the creator’s conviction that small matters move mountains. Maria Nikitina chose almost superheroes as her companions.