Sculpture with metal, pearls, and archival photos.

The title of the sculpture by Polina Osipova, an artist of Chuvash* origin, means “wings for flying to the ancestor stars.” It is related to the
Chuvash tradition of perceiving ancestors as stars in the night sky and to their concept of the world, of which the cosmos is an integral part.
During Soviet times, this perception was distorted and replaced with the colonial concept of space conquest, chiefly because the fifth cosmonaut was from Chuvashia. Many places were given space-related names; even the playgrounds had “rocket” slides. As a child, Polina made a drawing of a “spacecraft” suit to fly into space. She now decided to realize it, but instead of space, she dreams of using it to
connect with her Chuvash culture. Thus, wings transform into the peresti — a Chuvash mythological creature who serves as a medium between humans and gods. The wings are rusty, however, like the playground from the post-Soviet past. The wings are also covered with the artist’s family archival photos — these help her connect with her Indigenous identity and its oppressed culture.

March 2023,
Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin, Germany