In A knock from below heard from the bottom by Polina Medvedeva, the audience is equipped with an electromagnetic microphone and headset able to listen in to fragmented, subverted communication means from today's Russia.
Medvedeva draws inspiration from the saying «just as you thought you’ve reached the bottom, someone knocks from below».
Referring to the wire-tapping of power sockets in the Soviet Union and GDR, the sound installation is an assemblage of conversations which are intercepted, listened in on, recalled or recorded. A knock from below heard from the bottom attempts a search for the origin of the atrocities, trust in disinformation and passive endurance, as well as sparks of civil disobedience amid absurdity of censorship and the decline of civil rights in today’s Russia.
A noticeable undercurrent within the conversations is a generational divide tearing up family ties. For the installation at Lydgalleriet, Medvedeva has additionally developed audio-responsive glass light sculptures. Hanging from the ceiling, these beetroot sculptures speculate on the position of the audience.
Sunday December 3rd, Medvedeva performs a live-composed piece, Re-Currents, using her voice as instrument. The live-piece researches militarised gender violence and is inspired by a practice adrienne maree brown and Walidah Imarisha developed and called visionary fiction, which aims to imagine new just worlds through bottom up collective organising.
A knock from below heard at the bottom is developed through residencies at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, BEK, Bergen Kunsthall, S12 and Mustarinda. The exhibition is supported by Mondriaan Fund, Council of Bergen and Norwegian Visual Artists Fund. Curated by Julie Lillelien Porter and co-produced by Lydgalleriet and Oscillations.