Interview
Svetlana Ochkovskaya
Svetlana Ochkovskaya is an artist who currently lives and works in Portsmouth, UK.
Svetlana has received the National Lottery Project Grant, and is one of the nine winners of the Lucky Dip 2021 bursary scheme by 'a space' arts. She is a winner of Zealous Stories Sculpture 2021 and the Sunny Art Prize Award 2020. She has been shortlisted for the Batsford Prize Award 2019 and 2017, the Harvest Short Film Competition 2019, the Visual Art Open Prize 2018, the Nasty Women International Art Prize 2018. She has received the Goldsmiths International Response Scholarship Award 2017.
She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘out | side | in’ at The Smallest Gallery in Soho, ‘We Are Not Ourselves’ at The Stone Space, and the Jeannie Avent Gallery, London.
Svetlana has completed a residency and exhibited at Aspex Gallery in Portsmouth. She has also completed residencies at Solent University and Sticks Gallery in Fareham. Her recent publications include Ludvig Rage, Inside Artist, and Trebuchet.
What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“I was born in Belarusian SSR, a part of the USSR. I work and live in Havant, near Portsmouth. I started exploring art during my time in college, where I received an art and design BTEC Diploma from Portsmouth Highbury College. I then graduated with BA in Fine Art from the Southampton Solent University in 2017. I also have a Masters in Fine Art from Goldsmiths University in London. I currently see my work as a combination of different mediums including installation, wearable sculpture, performance, and film as one body of work.”
“The transformative power of wearable sculptures helps to explore the self, doubled and camouflaged. Freeing myself from the shackles of social constraints, I hide the presence of my person by masking race, social status, and class. I transform into a being who is constantly seeking a home, trying to understand what it means to be human, and questioning where she belongs.”
What does your work aim to say? Does it comment on any current social or political issues?
“My practice is based on sculpture, performance, and film. I make immersive, disorienting, otherworldly installations and wearable sculptures, which are the mythic representation of my worldview. Inhabited by a creature that is neither human nor alien, real nor imaginary, these environments and tactile costumes bend the fragile boundaries of our perceived reality.
The work is fantastic and strange, exploring ideas of identity, belonging, and otherness. The body is always central to my work: I see the body as an extension of the world I inhabit, and the world as an extension of the body. Thus, humans are more than they appear. Striving to make familiar things unfamiliar and give everyday experiences a new meaning, I present a new world for the viewer which plays with the way we perceive our environment. This fantastical world offers an escape from daily routines and our mundane way of seeing, and questions who we are and whom we can become.”
Which current art world trends are you following?
“My practice is zero carbon. I produce wearable eco-based body sculptures that are then publicly performed.”
Do you plan your work in advance, or is it improvisation?
“I always plan my projects in advance, especially projects involving photography and filming. Usually, I do all the work myself, from creating a sculptural costume, photography, performance, to final film production. Sometimes, my friends and family help to perform.
I usually make the costume first, then create an installation for it, creating the environment with the same materials used for the costume. I then move on to the photoshoot in the studio setting. I love bringing the wearable costume to life during a performance in the natural environment, like in the forest, park, or even in the high street. Finally, I make a short film from a series of performances in different environments.
I love improvisational moments during the performance, I call it ‘happening’, and I always look to capture how the audience reacts.”
“My sense of humor and playfulness is effusive throughout my work. I use humor as a break and escape from daily life, and as a gap between reality and illusion.”
What process, materials, techniques, etc., do you use to create your artwork?
“I usually work on different pieces simultaneously. I have never drawn sketches – the vision of the finished piece is always in my mind. I love to experiment with a variety of materials and techniques, preferring to work with organic and recycled materials, such as paper, autumn leaves, pebbles, etc. I keep finding new materials to work with every day.
To make the wearable sculptures or installations, I make the desired form base first, then attach different materials, such as sphagnum moss, reindeer moss, and others. The fragile nature of the materials makes costumes vulnerable to breakage. Designing and making the costumes is an incredibly time-consuming process. I have sometimes spent one year for spiky costumes.”
What’s your favourite artwork and why?
"My favorite work is by Yayoi Kusama, ‘Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity’. I love how her large-scale, enclosed environment offers the chance to step into an illusion of infinite space. Using mirrors, she transforms the intense repetition of her earlier works on paper into a perceptual experience. Furthermore, the mirrors create a participatory experience by casting the audience as the subject of the work.”
Have you had any noteworthy exhibitions you'd like to share?
“‘Search to Belong’ is my new project involving a series of wearable sculptures, performances, installations, and films. It is supported by public funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England and ‘a space’ arts’ Lucky Dip Bursary scheme. You can view it here and here.
‘Search to Belong’ reflects the multiplicity of identity and the never-ending pursuit for belonging. Exploring notions of the ‘self’ and its connection with the body and others in the world, this work presents new perceptions by challenging audiences to accept the absurdity of the Other. Viewers are invited to observe the story of two creatures of an unidentified nature - neither human nor animal, yet simultaneously both. Embodied in a human-like form with reptilian skin, and covered with scales from recycled beans bag balls, these creatures are ‘Other’ to the whole world but ‘Native’ to each other.
Relationships between bodies are at the heart of the narrative of ‘Search to Belong’. This coming together suggests that love and compassion for our fellow creatures is the pathway to creating a ‘we-world’- an inclusive environment at the intersection of all systems; a realm in which everybody belongs. This pathway is like a hike on a mountain range. Climbing toward each peak, we are extending the physical and psychological limits of the body, moving away from the already explored environment below.
The project has been shown in 2021 at:
Above Bar Street, Southampton - live performance.
Arches Open Studios - live performance and installations.
God’s House Tower in Southampton - Lucky Dip Exhibition - installation, live performance, film.
We Shine, in Portsmouth Guildhall. The Imaginarium of Dreams - film and live performance.
