Marzanna, Yours Again
Zoe Paul and Faye Wei Wei
16 January – 11 February 2018
Hot Wheels Projects
Patision
41, Athens
104 33, Greece
Spring is drawing near,
The works of Paul and Wei Wei engage with the visual weaving of their own individual narratives. Their work references both practical and visual histories, developing a language that combines the then and the now. Within the gallery, these dialogues are instigated but not settled. Paul’s ceramic heads are placed precariously around the space, suspended at great heights to sing out their wordless dialogue; aiai, oi, au, ea. Metaphorically reverberating through the space, the sounds linger, ricocheting off of Wei Wei’s jesters, sea urchins, monarchs and snakes. The figures float on the canvas, the surface reminiscent of a body of water where images resurface and reappear from uncertain depths. The Marzanna is led through the town, marching towards her inevitable descent.
When these narratives are unwoven, and the Marzanna drowned, only traces of symbols remain to guide an exploration.
Spring is drawing near,
winter
does not want to leave,
the
freezing nights linger,
snowing
gently still.
Marzanna,
Marzanna,
you
winter mistress,
today
we will drown you,
to
put an end to winter.
Drift
away with the ice,
far
away to the sea,
let
it finally come
to
us- buxom spring.
(Translated
from a Polish children’s song, Marzanna )
At
the end of winter, children gather to drown the Marzanna in the
closest lake, marking the beginning
of a new spring. Marzanna dolls, representative of the Baltic and
Slavic goddess associated
with seasonal rites, are created only to be destroyed. Part of a folk
tradition that has stood
the test of time, communities in Eastern Europe come together on the
first day of spring to create
their own effigy.
The dolls are collectively woven out of straw, adorned in white cloth, ribbons, necklaces, flowers, pine cones, branches and twine. Comparably, the clay beads in Zoe Paul’s bead curtains are handrolled in groups, bringing people together in a traditional and meditative process. The harnessing of age-old materials and techniques is propelled in the stages that follow; dipping, drenching and sinking the Marzanna, firing, threading and hanging the beads. Marzanna has become a malleable symbol; freed from her historical and sacred significance, she is a vessel for expressing personal mythologies and an embodiment of new beginnings. The annual remaking of the doll is mirrored in Faye Wei Wei’s reconditioning of motifs; on the one hand, unwaning and recurrent, on the other, novel and transformed. The ghastly baba jaga witch figure and the fanciful princesses and knights are drawn from the same medieval-cum-fantastical sphere, redevised and personalized by their creators.
The dolls are collectively woven out of straw, adorned in white cloth, ribbons, necklaces, flowers, pine cones, branches and twine. Comparably, the clay beads in Zoe Paul’s bead curtains are handrolled in groups, bringing people together in a traditional and meditative process. The harnessing of age-old materials and techniques is propelled in the stages that follow; dipping, drenching and sinking the Marzanna, firing, threading and hanging the beads. Marzanna has become a malleable symbol; freed from her historical and sacred significance, she is a vessel for expressing personal mythologies and an embodiment of new beginnings. The annual remaking of the doll is mirrored in Faye Wei Wei’s reconditioning of motifs; on the one hand, unwaning and recurrent, on the other, novel and transformed. The ghastly baba jaga witch figure and the fanciful princesses and knights are drawn from the same medieval-cum-fantastical sphere, redevised and personalized by their creators.
The works of Paul and Wei Wei engage with the visual weaving of their own individual narratives. Their work references both practical and visual histories, developing a language that combines the then and the now. Within the gallery, these dialogues are instigated but not settled. Paul’s ceramic heads are placed precariously around the space, suspended at great heights to sing out their wordless dialogue; aiai, oi, au, ea. Metaphorically reverberating through the space, the sounds linger, ricocheting off of Wei Wei’s jesters, sea urchins, monarchs and snakes. The figures float on the canvas, the surface reminiscent of a body of water where images resurface and reappear from uncertain depths. The Marzanna is led through the town, marching towards her inevitable descent.
When these narratives are unwoven, and the Marzanna drowned, only traces of symbols remain to guide an exploration.