This is my first art & design project I made on Pre-Foundation course @ British Higher School of Art & Design in 2014. All of the text below is left untouched as it was written back then.
I was born in Russia, 1998. I spent my childhood in typical soviet outskirts, where I used to play football and make snowmans. We moved in 2009, and now I live in a gloomy residential complex with security and stuff. Missing that time I generated an idea of making some kind of tribute to that period.
It's a common knowledge that people call this type of house 'a box', so I needed something which looked like one. We went off to the IKEA christmas sale and bought a little cabinet from natural wood with amazing birch smell.
The main concept was to show that although all russian boxes look very similiar, each of them has its own stories and tragedies. I divided each section into 3 parts, and each one had one person living in it. I filled them with different objects which could help the spectators to understand and feel the character of section. All the characters are typical residents of Russian outskirts. So, I've came up with 9 of them:
Teacher
36 years
in secret relationship
doesn’t have a degree
bookworm
never left Russia
enjoys cooking
Retiree
warm and kind woman
zealous Christian
no kids
lives in the past
rereads letters every day
loves sewing
happy
Locksmith
pulmonary disease
works shifts
not communicative
overweighted
sells stools
scar from the welding machine
Alcoholic
widower
can’t find a job
hates pop music
fishing a lot
has 19 best friends
happy
(probably not)
Single mother
self-employed
travels a lot
two daughters
snoring at night
loves cooking
spends hundreds on music
no regrets
Taxi driver
quotes Stalin
has a big family in Georgia
coughs a lot
hates GetTaxi
finished music school
superstitious
wants a better living
Trouble maker
argues with mother
lost faith in herself
rich family
wants to die
or to go to St.Petersburg
registered in 17 social networks
Student
left parents at the age of 15
life of the party
wheat intolerant
always in shape
swears a lot
making remixes
900 followers
Designer
sleeps 3 hours a day
9 deadlines on the week
bad organized
leads an indie-group
learns latin
