Mayana Nasybullova investigates the mechanisms of identity, nostalgia, and the transformation of iconic symbols of personal, collective, and historical memory. In the project Last Testaments Publishers, which she began in 2018, the artist creates ceramic books that are postapocalyptic artifacts seemingly left for future generations. Referencing archaic techniques, she ironically rethinks the possible end of the world.
The book Untitled is made of clay tablets with imprints of plants and plastic packaging, interleaved with fabric pages with embroidered text. These “fossilized” casts, traces of an era that has disappeared, are arranged in a single sequence of living and artificial, natural and technogenic. The texts include snatches of phrases: “the switch is broken,” “the air tastes strange,” “animals, laughter, and cold,” “and there’s no such love,” “it’s a shame and thank God,” reinforcing the atmosphere of a postapocalyptic chronicle. As in other books in the series, Untitled balances between seriousness and irony, reminding the reader of the sacred nature of knowledge and the importance of its preservation and transmission.
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