Alexandra Krolikowska

A multidisciplinary artist, psychologist. Inspired by the therapeutic power of art, she explores the relations of personal and collective mythology, and the modern role of archetypes and psychological rituals. Utilizing means of photography, video and performance, and being curious how art continues to bear its transformative function within the modern era, she combines analog technologies with universal and dream-like, utopian visions. Researching the concept of metamodernity, Alexandra pays special attention to the dualistic perceptions, unveiling in her works the nature of wholeness, embracing poles and seeing beyond.

[alexandrakrolikowska]

Chasing the deer shadow Analog photography, haiku 2022 

Implemented within Dereenacappera artist residency in County Cork, Ireland

During the art residency in Ireland I created a photo series called “Chasing the deer shadow”. It is a collection of visual poetic images of nature, each of which is accompanied by haiku. A “Chasing the deer shadow” photo series appeared as a result of poetic connection to nature, research of Irish mythology and history, and reflection on philosophical concepts. 

I was exploring fundamental questions, such as cyclicality and the wholeness of nature, its healing and mythological aspects, identity, notion of home and migration. 

Through taking the soft, dreamlike analog photographs of nature I explored a therapeutic effect of life in a remote village among the Caha mountains, near the Atlantic ocean. After seeing the news about the injured female deer in the Kyiv region last spring I came to County Cork with the idea to make a project dedicated to deer mythology. So I went to Killarney National Park to be able to take photographs of deer in their natural environment there. 

Besides that, I was doing research on the similarities of the Irish and Ukrainian historical contexts, and found some parallels: there was the  Great Irish Famine in 1845-49, and Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932-33, and also both countries' fights for independence are quite similar. Analysing this postcolonial discourse, part of the photo series I dedicated to the subject of Famine, the crucial role of potato culture in Ireland, and sad remembrance of the Law of spikelets in Ukraine. 

Since I was also exploring some of the philosophic and literature concepts of the 20 century, I did weave some profound quotes of the American philosopher Gertrude Stein* and the Irish writer James Joyce** within the haiku and visual photographic narrative. Also the concept of Golden Age, theory of primordial soup and Carl Jung’s theory of archetypes became a material for the inspiration. 

The final project has an intimate form of photo album, which, filled with the photographs and hand-written haiku to each of the images, became rather an art book. If there will be any opportunity to publish it, I will make it exactly in this way, copying the original form. In case there will be exhibitions in future, I can display separate photographs from the album, printed in large.

This art residence in Ireland was very meaningful to me. All the puzzle – very kind people on my way, financial support from the Artist at Risk program, sunny weather in Ireland and opportunity to stay in nature – was complete within this journey. I was able to work from a very different perspective, than I could make it in Ukraine or somewhere else in Europe.

* “Forget grammar and think about potatoes” and “Rose is a rose is a rose...” (1913)

** about the red and white roses, regarding possibility of everything in imagination and limits of the material world from his novel “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” (1916)

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Here Comes The Sun

Analog photography 2022

Made within RUCKA Artist Residency in Cesis, Latvia, with support of the Artist at Risk grant program.

In the Baltic mythology, the Sun deity becomes of central importance, and finds its manifestation in female form. 

Saule, a sun goddess in Latvia, for a long time before Christianisation of the region was considered as a mother, which we can hear in the song “Saule, Pērkons, Daugava” (based on the text from the poem Daugava by the Latvian poet Rainis, while the musical part is composed by Mārtiņš Brauns): “Sun was our mother,  Daugava the nanny of our pain, Pērkons was the devil’s striker, That was our father”. Saule is the giver of light and warmth and the controller of human time, and she determines the well-being and regeneration of all life on earth. Thus, representing regeneration as an idea within herself, she could be represented as both, mother and daughter. 

The artwork “Here Comes the Sun” depicts the archetypal goddess, which solemnly holds the planet Earth in her hands. This is Saule / Sun-Woman, who is raising the world as a child, up to the sun, which is a sign of giving it life and fortune. Moreover, with it she is a young goddess - Saules meita / Sun Daughter who just appeared on the canvas of a mythological narrative, and received the world to take care of it, so she greets it in the sun rays. 

In the way, how the Christian church (in general and in particular since the exhibition happened at the space of St. Anna Evangelical Lutheran Church in Cesis) requires renovation, and humanistic ideas require regeneration, in the same way the world cries to be healed, and our planet - to be cherished and taken care of. 

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Erasing Wor(l)ds 2022 Performance, analog photography

How it feels when someone tries to erase you from the surface of the Earth like a stain from carpet

Double exposed film photographs consist of images of my body and the maps of the places in Ukraine that have been destroyed by the Russian military weapon. To destroy Ukrainians as if they never existed, to wipe out Ukrainian cities seems the main intention of the Russian Federation. The last two months Ukrainians feel like an unwanted stain on the world map in the eyes of the Russians, who came with blood, death and destruction to bring order in the lives of Ukrainians. During the performance, I am trying to express visually how it feels when someone tries to erase you from the surface of the Earth like a stain from carpet. I use stain bleach for carpet washing, aiming to erase the names of the Ukrainian cities which manifest the idea of Ukraine as a sovereign state, from the photographs. The performance happened during the Captured House collective exhibition at the Alte Muenze in Berlin, Germany

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Like a stain on the carpet 2022 Analog photography, double exposure technique, film soup process 30x40 cm

What is it like to feel like a stain on the carpet, an unwanted spot on the world map that Russians want to erase from the face of the Earth?

Being paralyzed and impressed by the Bucha massacre event and all horrible things that the Russian army does to my native land, I created a series of film photographs applying double exposure technique: one layer consisted of the maps of the Ukrainian cities destroyed by Russians, and the second layer consisted of my body on the black background. Then I soaked the film in a stain bleach for carpet washing, and it destroyed part of the images.  Comparing the feelings of being a Ukrainian these days, with a stain that is tried to be removed from surface, I outline Russia’s aspiration to erase Ukraine from the world's map, to destroy the very idea of Ukraine and its identity as we never existed.

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The Day The Sun Stands Still  2021, 12.21 1min 2s Video, a part of the project Music by Mykhailo Hrechkyn The Day The Sun Stands Still is a multimedia project, a performative ritual that had been documented on photo film and analog video, and also has a short part of a video scene taken with a drone. This is a poetic reflection on the cyclicality of life, a continuation of my research on relations of personal and collective mythology. This piece unveils the performative ritual that replays ancient practice of honoring nature, and welcoming the dark time of the year. It is about inner transformation through personal identification with my native steppe nature which is hibernating in the wintertime and by thus regenerates itself.   It was filmed on winter solstice, “the special day when the sun stands still”, which means significant death and rebirth of the Sun according to ancient mythology. Place, where it happens, is called Kamyana Mohyla (The Stone Tomb), and belongs to the oldest historical and cultural sites on the Earth. Over the thousands of years people were making their rituals and sacred ceremonies in this place, and so did I. Camera by Eugene Lir Post production by Matthew O’Toole Link on full analog video

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The Day The Sun Stands Still 

2021, 12.21  Analog photography The Day The Sun Stands Still is a multimedia project, a performative ritual that had been documented on photo film and analog video, and also has a short part of a video scene taken with a drone.

This is a poetic reflection on the cyclicality of life, a continuation of my research on relations of personal and collective mythology. This piece unveils the performative ritual that replays ancient practice of honoring nature, and welcoming the dark time of the year. It is about inner transformation through personal identification with my native steppe nature which is hibernating in the wintertime and by thus regenerates itself.   It was filmed on winter solstice, “the special day when the sun stands still”, which means significant death and rebirth of the Sun according to ancient mythology. Place, where it happens, is called Kamyana Mohyla (The Stone Tomb), and belongs to the oldest historical and cultural sites on the Earth. Over the thousands of years people were making their rituals and sacred ceremonies in this place, and so did I.

[alexandrakrolikowska]

Dumka-Shumka

Analog photographs and still frames from video 2021 Audio-video installation 7min 56s

Ukrainian Rhapsody, Mykola Lysenko (1877)

Reflecting on the issue of identity, I turned this video project to the visual code of the cultural and historical landscape. It’s a story of a performative journey, during which the search for one's self is accompanied by direct experience of tactile dialogue with nature. The path to self-knowledge is reflected in universal natural images - the study of their own origins through touching the roots of trees, achieving the goal through climbing a hill, contemplating the ephemerality of time and the cyclical nature of life by interaction with the river.

Understanding the indivisibility of human and natural processes leads to the realization that self is also a natural organism characterized by cyclicality, change and development. Just as Mykola Lysenko's composition "Dumka-Shumka" demonstrates the relationship between reasoning, inner reflection and active experience, game or dance, so the video encourages to look into the outer horizons and dive into the inner depths of oneself at the same time.

Music performed by V. Petryk and I. Sedyuk Made as part of the Digital Art Therapy Studio V-Art project Created with the support of the UCF

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Butterfly Effect

2021 Audio-video installation 4min 45s Still frames from video

Made as part of the Digital Art Therapy Studio @v.art.digital project Created with the support of the @ucf.ua

Life is full of immense chaos, and we never know how small changes affect global processes. Thus, the "butterfly effect" can be applied to mental processes, considering the development of each individual as a guarantee of the development of all mankind.

Just as the Butterfly Nebula contains both the fading of old stars and the radiance of nascent stars, so humanity today is on the verge of transition from one state to another. Change is always a pain for the past and a joy for the future, and to go through the inner transformation, one must learn to see the beauty and grandeur of this process. After all, only by realizing that everything is inextricably linked, we are able to find new ways to discover the potential of the inner universe.