Kanis Polina
Born in 1985 in Leningrad. Graduated from the Rodchenko Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia. Winner of the Kandinsky Prize (2012, “Young Artist. Project of the Year”) and the Sergey Kuryokhin Award (2016, “Best Media Object”). Lives and works in Amsterdam.
Toothless Resistance Ссылка на видео в бюллетене для голосования.
The mechanical eye of the camera smoothly browses through the interior capturing the room. It is a reconstruction of a room where Russian geographer and philosopher Peter Kropotkin lived from 1886 to 1917. The interior was reconstructed for a museum on the Smolensky Boulevard in Moscow but it hasn’t survived to the present day. In this very room, Kropotkin wrote his monograph “Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution” in which he claimed that cooperation and not competition is the key factor of evolution. A special emphasis is put on the realisation that humans are not exceptional creatures on our planet. The off-camera voice describes a certain post-anthropocentric landscape. Passing cars and birdsong are heard in the distance.
Polina Kanis calls into question the mere dichotomy of action and inaction in the absence of an event. Thus, resistance becomes the subject and the object at the same time, provoking changes by posing the question: “To act or to remain passive?” Is the artistic act equal to resistance? Our “new reality” shows us that we do not exist in isolation but constantly interact with matter that dwells outside the “yes/no” binary system.
Vera Trakhtenberg, Andrei Shental
2020, Video, 3K, stereo sound. Audio play, stereo sound. 32 mins. Created with the support of Cultural Creative Agency
