Presenting new online solo show by Olga Stein “THE MYTH OF THE BODY THAT PROCESSED HOPE AND GOD PROJECT” created in CARV_24, based on Olga’s reflections on a comparison of the pearl’s creation in a shell and the Body that nurtures the Hope. The materials: slime, pearl sculpture, metal

Release

The process of pearl formation is based on the reaction of the mollusk’s immune system to contact with a grain of sand or a parasite (it can also be the mollusk’s unhatched eggs, small hemorrhages, or parts of the epithelium). Eventually, the dangerous foreign object, which the mollusk cannot remove, is isolated by layers of nacre and becomes the nucleus of the pearl. 

The story of the formation of Christian hope is that God the Father gave the body of his son to atone for the sins of mankind. Thus, every mortal was allowed to go to heaven. Ultimately, the story of my country’s hope in 2024 is the decision of mortal men and women to defend their homes with their bodies.

Olga Stein finds the idea of her works and artistic practice in general in her faith. The author appeals to Christian iconography, imagery, and symbolism to find a new way of thinking about faith in the modern world and keeping God in oneself. 

In Stein’s interpretation, the body as a defender can use hope as an irritant to process an obstacle and create the idea of faith and God from it. With the body of a mollusk, which transforms destruction into a new creation, the artist represents the collective body of Ukrainian society. In The Myth of the Body that Processed Hope and God, the body appears as something that defends the integrity of the organism. The body of a mollusk is a metaphor for a powerful process of self-defense in the depths of a fragile and ephemeral substance, where hope enters as an irritant and becomes something that prompts action.

— Halyna Hleba , The Curator.

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