For the new edition of NADA New York, Eugster || Belgrade proposes a presentation of two artists: Eva Papamargariti and Saša Tkačenko.
Saša Tkačenko’s interest lies with the politics of remembrance, culture of nostalgia, and the fragile position of the individual in relation to the dynamic movements on a global societal level. Usually working with spatial connections and the signature use of text and design, the new wall installations are layered from a poster background and engraved aluminium composite panels, which contain smaller versions of the posters as archival prints. In this case, words like VOID, FALL or HOLE that we’re faced with are synonymous with negative space, and turn into abstract signifiers – words that point to what isn’t there, or what’s been removed. In a way, the posters of the installation function as spatial reminders, as memorabilia of our emotional states and our shared moments, of how things we encounter on the street everyday in passing become part of the backdrop for larger events happening on the cultural landscape. Emerging from a specific temporal context, the works break away from their sources to create new meaning in the present.
Eva Papamargariti in a similar way explores personal interweaving with surroundings and possible alternative (corpo)realities. The series of small clay sculptures, All that is hidden, explore a multitude of natural and synthetic organisms around the area of Zollverein, Germany, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. These organisms, resembling feminine hybrid figures, are integral components of a dynamic ecosystem and bear witness to the history of the site. The work attempts to show how the events of the past have been virtually “engraved” into the landscape and soils of their surroundings, unfolding a narrative that reveals traces, remnants, hidden and invisible organisms, fossils and new hybrid life forms that co-exist. Accompanying the sculptures are textile works on fake leather skin, suspended with steel on the wall. These works are representative of Eva’s practice, defined by abstract, anatomical and unfamiliar visuals of organisms, aiming to refer to a multitude of bodies and their encounters. Sort of like shedding light on all the possibilities of touching, feeding, containing, communicating, a visible or invisible physical being can have with another.
The presentation explores memory, identity, and the interplay between the individual and larger systems through different approaches of the two artists, highlighting traces of our
everyday recordings (Saša) and relations of the corporeal and the historical (Eva).