Artist interview: Asya Marakulina
Image credit: Victoria Nazarova
A large, soft sculpture is suspended inside the Smallest Gallery in Soho. Through the windows you can see that it’s intended to be a scoop of earth. It floats precariously, levitating with an uncertainty about it’s stability. Vibrant green grass and colourful mushrooms surf on the top, and cute but confused worms mingle with the roots falling out of the bottom. It’s not grounded. It’s just there… in the middle of nowhere… trying hard to stay balanced.
It might not look like a self portrait but this installation captures the current mindset of artist Asya Marakulina. Born in 1988 in Russia, Asya lived and worked in Saint Petersburg until she and her husband decided to move to Austria in mid-2021. It took about a year before they finally landed in Vienna, during which time Russia’s “special military operation” had commenced in Ukraine. Being an ex-pat can be a challenging life change, but for Asya and many of her Russian contemporaries living on foreign soil, the current state of world politics brings additional confusion and stress.
I’m sitting with Asya in a coffee shop, looking at her installation from across the street. She comments that “you can see it only from the outside. You can’t interact with it. But you want to immediately touch them and hug them but you can’t. Maybe that’s what I feel about my motherland now. I still love it. I still have my family there. But it’s like forbidden love now. You cannot really say it loud that you love your country.”
Image credit: Elena Otvodenko
Artists in Russia have to be careful, because art there is easily mis-interpreted and scrutinised in ways it might not be in other countries. And though she has made a few anti-war pieces, and even had a few projects censored in her homeland, her artistic practice isn’t explicitly political. Moving to Vienna was one way to give Asya freedom to explore eternal themes such as life, love and death in ways that didn’t force her to compromise her artistic visions.
Asya tells me that she likes “art I can touch and hang and embrace” which is what led her to purchase a rather large stock of colourful, artificial fur many years ago. “It was so nice to touch,” she tells me, and thanks to a special sneak peek I can validate that statement. I can still feel the softness on my hands as she talks about the various artworks she has made with it, including some that she refers to as her ‘little heroes’. Like a teddy bear that helps a young child sleep at night, Asya’s characters are an expression of comfort and safety. You’ll see some of these in her current installation, which Asya says was also soothing to make. “It was important for me to use this fur, because I brought it from home.”
Image credit: Elena Otvodenko
Though she’s lived in Vienna for the past two years, Asya’s use of the word ‘home’ refers to Russia. People often underestimate how long it can take to rebuild a life. She and her husband are living like students again and the process to establish a new home and studio has led to unexpected discoveries, such as a clay workshop that introduced Asya to ceramics. It was an entirely new medium for her but is now a part of her practice. She says it helped her settle during an incredibly stressful time in her life, commenting that “I was just immersed in the process. It was so healing.”
In spite of the disconnect and displacement she experienced, Asya continues to move forward. “I’m not getting tired because I’m always changing. You can always transform your experience into something beautiful.” Which brings us back to her installation across the street. I’m curious how a Russian artist that moved to Vienna is showing artwork in London.
For that you can thank guest curator Anna Filonenko, who is also Russian. She discovered the gallery when she was living in London in 2023. At that time she was working on a documentary about Russian artists that now live and work outside their homeland. Asya was one of the artists profiled, and having become familiar with her practice and finding that they shared a “sense of loss of motherland and home”, Anna thought that Asya’s works would be a perfect fit for the space. Both also embraced the opportunities that a neutral gallery, without Russian connections, could provide.
Like her floating clump of earth, Asya doesn’t yet know where her roots will eventually land. “I like the idea that I continue here something that I started at home.” It’s a tricky balance, not belonging completely to any one particular place, but it’s a challenge that she continues to explore through her art. Wherever she may be, and wherever she can show it.
A quick disclaimer:
As a Friend of the Gallery, London Art Roundup is provided with advance and behind-the-scenes access to interview the artists that exhibit at The Smallest Gallery in Soho. All contributions are voluntary. Neither the artist, gallery or London Art Roundup received any financial compensation for this interview.
Click here to read our interview with The Smallest Gallery in Soho.
Plan your visit
‘Uprooted’ runs until February 2025.
Visit thesmallestgalleryinsoho.com and follow @thesmallestgalleryinsoho on Instagram for more info about the venue.
Visit asyamarakulina.com and follow @asya_marakulina on Instagram for more info about the artist.
Visit @af_chronicles on Instagram for more info about the curator, Anna Filonenko.
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