“We explore the problem of plastic as a phenomenon of our century. Not only as trash that covers our planet in a thick layer, a new geological layer.”

Interview by Rochelle Roberts. Translated from Russian by Dmitry Gugin

Could you tell us a bit about yourselves and your background? Where did you study?

Katherina: Lilia and I studied together at the Rodchenko School of Photography and Multimedia, Moscow. We were on different courses, studying documentary photography. After graduation, we decided to try to do a project together, to go beyond photography.  I then got carried away by painting, although I never studied and did not know how to draw properly. We created together our first crazy work “Someone wants to devour me” in 2016. I was very impressed by Lilia's photography, which she did not show anywhere, because there is a strict censorship system in Russia. I supplemented her photographs with naive painting, this work turned out aggressive and very sexy, and also, in some places, very funny. We never showed it in any of our exhibitions. It was our first experience - intuitive and sincere - and back then we didn't think with our heads and we had all this crazy energy. Today we are more thoughtful about our work. But we needed a start.

I'm very interested in how you work together as an artist duo. Could you tell us a bit about the process of creating art? Does one of you have an idea and tell the other, or do you think of works to make entirely together?

Katherina: Yes, we often share ideas with each other, we discuss a lot, and the final result is born after long conversations and sometimes arguments. And the technical side of production is more like clear and precise work than inspired creation. In general, there is not as much mystery in production as many people think. It's hard work, where you have to follow the technology, the safety rules of working with materials. As for video shoots, that's a separate story - we work with a large team of excellent professionals who implement our ideas based on our sketches.

Lilia: I find it much easier to work in tandem. When an idea comes to mind, there is always someone to discuss it with and see it through. We can talk for hours on different topics and never get tired of each other. Lately I have begun to understand when I have chemistry with another person. Only if one has a sense of humor. Katya has it. ;-)

I'm really intrigued by the work you are making in video and other media which seems very much concerned with ecological futurism. Could you speak a bit about the inspiration for this work and what you are trying to explore?

Lilia: Four years ago, Katya and I visited a residence on Lake Baikal in Siberia. I admired the nature around me, but I understood that it was not easy for it from the influx of tourists, especially those who took full advantage of it.

We saw the abandoned quarry as a monument to man-made violence. Violence of any nature is always experienced and presented bodily, eliciting a bodily response. We embedded our work in nature without raping it or changing its forms, and showed the exposed marble flesh of the earth as a bleeding wound.

Katherina: In the project Where is my plastic bag? We explore the problem of plastic as a phenomenon of our century. Not only as trash that covers our planet in a thick layer, a new geological layer. We are interested in human interaction with plastic as a convenient and accessible material, human interaction with nature, human responsibility before nature, human utilitarian attitude towards natural resources, the planet and the entire biosphere. For some reason we (humanity) have decided that everything around exists solely for us. We can use it, throw it away, create it again and destroy it. We have elevated ourselves to the top, imagining that we are the highest point of evolution and we are the most important on the geophysical level. And where does this take us? We have explored the possibilities of recycling plastic trash in large factories (all of our sculptures are created solely from recycled material). Much of our project was done in collaboration with a young chemist, Sakina Zeynalova, who created a biodegradable hydrogel from potato starch. Most often, this hydrogel is to be used in agriculture, feeding water to the soil, allowing less frequent use of large agricultural machinery for irrigation. After 25-30 days, the hydrogel completely decomposes in the soil and does not poison it. Right now, we are preparing for a solo exhibition in Russia, where for the first time we are going to build an installation of trees and small plants that will feed on hydrogel water. Visitors to the exhibition will be able to watch how hydrogel degrades every day, and in a month, it will simply disappear into the soil.

I wonder if you could tell us about working in different media, such as video, sculpture and photography. what does each media offer you as artists, how do you go about deciding how to use them?

Lilia: I used to do documentary photography. When I realized that I had become cramped within one medium, I decided to expand the boundaries by exploring different ones. Today, while doing the project, we use those tools that will convey our statements more precisely. And if we realize that we don't master the needed tool (or medium), we enter into collaboration with other professionals.

Tell us a bit about how you spend your day / studio routine? What is your studio like?

Katherina: Usually we sit down on the couch in front of the table, each of us takes out the food we brought with us, we drink tea or coffee, and we talk a lot. Then one of us suggests that maybe we should try to start doing some work after all. :-) Now our studio looks like a decent place to work. Before, while we were working on the project Where is my plastic bag?, our studio looked like a plastic trash sorting station (see photo). We collected plastic from museums and art institutions, places where the artist and their audience belong to. So in our studio we washed those bottles and packages from dirt, and when we were done collecting, we took all that to a recycling plant. We needed that material for sculptures.

We have a lot of different interesting objects in our studio, they are mixed in with the artwork, sketches. Our guests can never tell where the work is and where it is just an object. We like to collect different stones and animal skeletons.

Lilia once sneaked into a closed location where a serial murder took place, and then that house was burned down. She found some strange sculptures, like a wooden arm or an animal hoof. They are now in our studio. The energy of the terrible can be mesmerizing, helping you look at and think about something from different, very opposite angles.

What artwork have you seen recently that has resonated with you?

Katherina: I was very impressed by the young Argentinian sound artist El Pelele.  A real gem! We even wrote him a letter saying that we were inspired by his work and would like to do a collaboration with him. He said that he would like to do it. We are sure that it will be something incredibly cool).

Lilia: If we talk about Russia, few artists make statements on such topics. Perhaps AES+F. I am inspired by what happens to me on a daily basis. Whether it's a movie, a book I read, or a statement made by someone. The work of other artists can bring to mind a thought that we can discuss together at length and then it grows into something bigger.

Is there anything new and exciting in the pipeline you would like to tell us about?

Both: Right now we are working on a new project called "A00000000000101000AA011". This is a project about the posthuman. Here we are exploring the topic of human interaction and connection with other forms of existence. What would happen if we had a new body, created through interaction with new technologies, materials, bacteria? Would we be eternal, and would we remain the same humans? We are concerned with the question, what will happen to the emotions of the new person, the post-human, the cyborg...? Will we be able to refuse to reproduce ourselves? Looking at the development of medicine and biotechnology, emotionally we are still in the capsule of our ancestors, who first killed for food and then for entertainment.

The project will consist of six videos with CG graphics and 3D. With the help of CGI, the characters in the videos are equipped with special implants and additional organ systems that allow them to survive in the modern world, where there have been many ecological disasters, powerful CO2 emissions into the atmosphere have led to global warming, viruses have destroyed the normal biological body, and it is forced to adapt to modern conditions. 3D organs move and pulsate with humans, responding to their emotional and physical state.  Advances in technology and biotechnology have allowed the post-human to survive in the most difficult conditions, to revive a dead body and grow food with the help of innovative 3D printers and incubators. Also, the post-human possesses new systems of perception and feeling. For example, one of the characters possesses a system of heightened empathy and can sense the emotional and physical state of people just like him and "non-humans". Brain mapping and emulation capabilities will allow new humans to be eternal as a neural network in digital reality, or having an augmented biological body that we create for them with CGI.

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All images are courtesy of the artist
Date of publication: 20/05/21