Tatler+ Cosmodreams
Combining traditional art with augmented reality, Russian artist Marina Fedorova dreams up a dystopian world in her exhibit, Cosmodreams
They say the universe started with a bang.
It’s theorized that all that we know, and all that we have yet to know about, all came from an entity smaller than a speck of dust: a single primordial atom. This is the idea that was first brought forward by cosmologist, and Belgian priest, Georges Lemaître sometime in the 1920s. Not long after, Edward Hubble theorized—and proved—that the universe was expanding; relatively nearby galaxies were moving away at a speed proportional to their distance. It’s an idea that would undeniably change how people would view the cosmic universe.
If the universe has been growing and evolving over the last 14 billion years, who’s to know what existed? If it’s set to survive billions more years, who’s to say what’s to come next?
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In Cosmodreams, artist Marina Fedorova explores and reflects on her impressions of the universe. How the ever-changing, ever-expanding society we live in is simply a microcosm in the far grander scheme of things. The exhibition shows elements of Earth juxtaposed with details of outer space, co-existing in a hyperreality of Fedorova’s own making. Collectively, they make up her imagined universe, one which she urges viewers to journey across, through various snapshots.
The focal point of most of the works in the exhibition is a female heroine, drawn as though the subject of painted 1950s fashion editorials. Fashionable, and without visible flaws, their lips and donned dresses are vibrant against a background that removes them from their era. One of them is in a candy apple-coloured swing dress hanging up the laundry as one is wont to do, but instead of used linens being hung to dry, several spacesuits rest on the clothesline. Another of these heroines is in a scarlet maillot, toes pointed on the ground, and a hand lifted to her face in thought—a matching CCCP helmet behind her, as she stares at Earth in the distant horizon.
