Until 25 November, Ellen de Bruijne Projects in Amsterdam is presenting a solo exhibition of Ksenia Galiaeva. The Russian-Dutch artist has a fascinating background and uses her lens to tell an intimate and personal story, yet not a true one.
For over twenty-five years, the artist has been capturing images of her parents in the seemingly idyllic setting of their Russian summerhouse. She does this with the aim of reshaping her memories and family history. Her series "Unreal Estate" delves deeply into memory, identity and autobiographical fiction. She photographs her parents and their dacha in the Russian countryside, creating images that reflect reality but simultaneously play with its perception. Her photos, containing subtle fictional elements, are an homage to her parents and their way of life, effectively transforming them into mythical figures within their own stories.
Confronted with the advancing age of her parents and the recent invasion in Ukraine, Galiaeva is now concluding this long-term project in the form of a book with over 100 images, an audiobook, a film, and a four-part film installation. These projects not only extend her photographic oeuvre but also represent a personal and potentially healing journey through her family history. As the only child of two Holocaust survivors, with an ethnic mix of five nationalities (Jewish, Polish, German, Tatar, and Russian) and four religions, her work is deeply rooted in personal experiences and collective history. The series pays tribute to their shared history and the impact it has had on her as a person and as an artist. A selection of the photos is currently on display at Ellen de Bruijne Projects.
Ksenia Galiaeva: “Since 1997 I have been making photos of my parents in the paradisiacal surroundings of our Russian summerhouse in an attempt to influence my own memory and our family history. Duration and memory are embedded in perception. Memory changes through repetition; perception is coloured by previous experiences but has also the power to initiate changes in memory. The summerhouse has become a collection of metaphors where time passes at a stretchable speed - like mythical time where the story continues but is repeating itself at the same time. [The series] ’Unreal Estate' combines the summerhouse saga with the more essayistic project revolving around the subject of ‘Autobiographical fiction': the making of self-story, the fictional elements in memory and (national) identity, the use of personal metaphors, imagination as a tool in a visual or literary narrative, linear and non-linear ways of storytelling. Autobiography is a tool to give life meaning. The term 'Autocommunication' used by Yuri Lotman, describes an internal dialogue during which the information changes through excessive repetition into creative force and can instigate changes in personality. This form of self-dialogue I consider the basis of all my work.”
On Voordekunst, Galiaeva writes: “As a child and family member of victims of war, the Holocaust, and Gulag and labor camps, I know how extended trauma works its way through generations. In my work, I tried to create a world where we do not deny the traumas, but live with them as well and happily as possible, so that we can heal. Through love, empathy, and support for each other, and by continually rewriting the autobiographical story. This is my tool, my driving force, my comfort, and my hope, and I would like to share it. Our survival strategy may also help others.”
Galiaeva was born in 1976 in Pskov and moved to the Netherlands at the age of nineteen, where she completed a degree at the Academy of Art and Design in 's-Hertogenbosch, followed by a Master in Fine Arts at St. Joost in Breda. Her work has been shown in the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, the Fries Museum, the Stedelijk Museum ’s-Hertogenbosch (currently the Design Museum), the Moscow MoMA, and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul. Additionally, she works as a lecturer in Photography and Fine Arts at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam.