ELISAVETA CHILINGAROVA
/EDUCATION/ 2017–2023 I. M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University (General Medicine)2023–2027 HSE Art and Design School (Media and Design; Contemporary Art and Design)/GROUP EXHIBITIONS/ 2025 «Zine Culture: Montage, Assembly, Process» HSE Art Gallery, Moscow, Russia «Body of Vision» Si19 Gallery, Moscow, Russia2026 «Journeys: Through Time and Space» Arkhangelskoye Estate Museum, Moscow Region, Russia «They Took Our Jungle Away» Fabrika Centre for Creative Industries, Moscow, Russia «Russian Square. Palekh» Linen. Palekh, Ivanovo Region, Russia «Megalithic Complex» Second-year student exhibition, Gryaz village, Russia
I work with destruction caused by external forces: how it deforms the body and the environment, and what support can be found in response.
I. Inward: fixation
First, destruction has to be noticed: how pressure from outside surfaces in the body and the psyche.
/1/
«Kids in a Cage», 2024
Installation objects: deformed plastic, printed 3D scans of people.Pressure from outside gets inside and surfaces in the body.
A cage for the head is a cage for the body. Restrictions descend from above: the outside world deforms consciousness, and consciousness in turn deforms the body. In a moment of nakedness, vulnerability and sincerity, the reliefs of mental cages begin to show through the body. 3D scans of people on deformed plastic sheets: a cast of personal reality that shows what pressure has done to the body. The objects present the body as a conductor of sensation, where the inner becomes visible.
Destruction is either hidden under gloss or admired as a ruin. Either way, the most important thing disappears: its cause. I spent six years training as a doctor and worked for a year and a half as a nurse in a COVID red zone. Destruction relentlessly accompanied the entire cycle of human life. In art, I work with it metaphorically: through the body, material and space. This path leads from the body to a real place, where destruction once again stops being abstract.
/2/
«Fun Starts», 2025
Delegated performance, video documentation.Inaction can destroy too: a postponed life destroys quietly.
A postponed life. A moment awaited for so long that never happened. Tomorrow, everything will definitely happen. Anhedonia as a form of destruction. The vacuum of loneliness and of expectations of oneself deepens the dissociation between inner impulse and action, while every day of delay makes an attempt exponentially less likely. Without an attempt, stagnation becomes suffocating and permanent. The performance captures this state.
/3/
«Oxidation», 2026
Triptych: metal, artificial corrosion, transfer images.Imposed destruction infects, but supports can be set against it.
A dialogue with metal and the artificial force that destroys it. Rusting stands for influences and circumstances imposed from outside. To capture the state that accompanies unnatural destruction, along with two motifs that resist it: the industrial and the organic. The images are stretched lengthwise, echoing the shape of each metal sheet. Here, fixing destruction turns into a search for support for the first time.
