Interview: Anastasia Savinova

YM: How does working with found materials help you explore the relationship between the human and non-human world, and how do these materials inspire the creation of new forms or beings in your sculptures?

AS: Working with found materials has been a way of recognizing the world: by touching, collecting, composing. I encounter objects and materials charged with stories and energies, and their shape and texture suggest images of known and unknown beings. When I see an old wooden boat with patina and lichen growing on it – I see a whale, and it’s calling for a sculpture, where human and nonhuman world meet. We are not separate; we constantly co-emerge and affect each other. When I combine materials, I’m trying to find where they can connect and transmute into something else, into new species, new presence.

YM: Co-existence is a strong theme in your artistic practice. Could you tell us more about how the idea of “more-than-human” ecologies
influences and shapes your work?

AS: Yesterday I was mixing soil, clay and grass for a sculpture, today I’ve been cleaning blue mussel shells for another sculpture. Those simple actions mean a lot to me, it feels like touching and interacting with other life forms. It’s nearly ritualistic, bringing forth thoughts about life and death, elements, creatures that coexist with me, or that existed long before I did, and are still around in a metamorphized form. It probably can be described as an “oceanic feeling” – a feeling of being one with the external world as a whole. I’m trying to carry this feeling through my work, and to create encounters with those other life forms, which are part of the same life force.

YM: Collaboration with researchers and professionals from other fields is an important part of your process. Can you share a specific project where this interdisciplinary approach added a new dimension to your work?

AS: The sound-sculpture installation, Dialects of the Deep, is a good example of such a collaboration, where expertise from different fields merges to create a complex multi-layered work. I worked with the sound artist John Andrew Wilhite and marine biologist Dr. Rebekah Oomen. Oomen has been researching cod behaviour for about 15 years, and with Wilhite, they made unique recordings of sounds of cod fish mating rituals, pushing boundaries of the current state of knowledge. I created monumental sculptures from old boats and net floats, evoking images of fish bodies and eggs. The sound piece is played directly through the boat sculptures, causing their wood to vibrate. The sound of each sculpture is unique, as the boats have distinct resonant frequencies. This creates a powerful presence of three individuals, three aquatic beings with their own dialects. Visual, sound, and research elements amplify each other, building an immersive experience.

Image: Anastasia Savinova. Photo: Maxim Vlasov