Thread the Needle
2020-ongoing
My grandma passed away on my birthday. I felt her warmth and care until I was 27 years old.
What do I even know about her? Not very much, to my shame. Although I sincerely considered her to be my closest person.
I need to get to know her again. Not as a person I-love-because-that-is-my-grandma, but just as a person. People, objects, my own memories and my grandma’s craft techniques will tell a lot. Bead by bead, stitch by stitch.
“Alyosha, come here, thread the needle!” — Grandma is calling me. I run to her room.
Working with photography and mixed media, I’m rethinking the life of my grandmother. Everything in this project is related to her and is devoted mainly to intra-family relationships. At the same time characteristics of Soviet and post-Soviet realities run through it like a red thread, prompting me to reflect on the place of a person with an “ordinary biography” in historical timeline.
Unveiling Boundaries: Power, Identity and Body
Aspan Gallery
Almaty, Kazakhstan
2025
© Theo Frost
Singularity
Technische Sammlungen
Dresden, Germany
2024
© Sophie Arlet