Assemblage

Starting from the image of Daphne turning into a laurel tree, Anastasia Bogomolova moves ancient plot to the world existing at the stage of cultural and natural half-life. In "Assemblage" the conventional figure of the nymph becomes the embodiment of an obsessive state to escape into the forest – a place that is mistakenly perceived to be abandoned but turns out to be the ruins of civilization, where unpredictable intraspecific contacts take place. Visually, the project is divided into two parts. In the first, the artist explores forest landscapes next to well-trodden paths, which look wildly in the images. In photographic performances there the human body is subordinated to the logic of a forest or bushes. The second part, created in the studio, utilizes natural materials. Collected in various ecological niches, they combined into assemblages on the human body — possible or unattainable ones. Dry branches seem to be new limbs, lichens and mosses grow through the skin, rough bark tightens the injuries. Illuminated with bright contrasting colours, these hybrids look like jewellery pieces or futuristic modifications of a body striving to move beyond the dichotomy of nature and culture.