Letter to the void (2021)
Calico, embroidery and solvent transfer
Letter to the void looks into my personal memory of my grandparents. Being far away from the original roots of my family, I try to recall memories of them. Letter to the void is about diving deep into emotions that reach across time, as I search for answers about who they were, who I am, and how our ancestors shape our perception of ourselves.
About the Artist
Olga Svyatova is an interdisciplinary artist whose work deconstructs and examines themes of everyday, personal and collective memory, identity, intimacy, and interconnectivity. Working across photography, printmaking, and textiles she compels viewers to reflect on the connections that sustain our everyday lives. Born and raised in Russia, and now based in Gadigal Country, Sydney, Olga’s experience of cultural, geographic, and personal relocation drives their practice. Olga has exhibited at Our Neon Foe Project Space, Tiles Lewisham, Back Space, Verge Gallery, Hurstville Museum.
Transcription
My name is Olga Svyatova and my artwork title is Letter to the Void. The work is sort of two big pieces of fabric with embroidery on it, and also on top of this calico fabric, and there is now a more transparent layer of fabric with print of two photographs on it.
So the text on the fabric is actually a letter to my grandparents who passed away, And so, yeah, I just took some time to write down what I wanted to tell them. And, originally I had a chat with my mother about them, because I don't have much memory of my grandparents but when I realised that actually, it's not my memory of them, it's my mother memory of them, and so I wrote something more like about the fact that I don't remember them and, I thought it would be also good to include, like their photographs as a print on top of his letter.
Yeah, I guess relationship, it's quite obvious that it's a letter to people who passed away and it's sort of my way to reconnect, or at least, take time to think about them, by developing this work, especially because I did embroidery and it took quite a long time so it was, yeah, quite a mediative process, and so it's sort of included the time into my work. The fact that it's okay not to remember. Yeah, like not to remember much about people, but I guess even though you don't remember much of them, they're still there. They're like your ancestors, and yeah, there's still sort of present.