Expanded world

I only ever associated Ilya and Emilia Kabakov with that 'mausoleum' installation at Serpentine Gallery, London, and I never wanted to look at their work. But I chanced upon an image from Singapore Biennale 2008 of their installation and it looked wondrous. A little digging turned up their site, which is a little heavy on the flash-bells-n-whistles, but shows a whole range of beautiful, poetic and, why not say it, rather wacky projects.

Even the short descriptions of each work opens up whole new worlds. Here are some of my favorites, which I don't doubt you will love as well! Yes, it's very 'me'...

The Antenna
Whenever we look up at the sky, we involuntarily have a 'presentiment': unconsciously we anticipate some sort of communication from there; it seems that 'something' will be addressed directly to me...

Ten Characters
The inhabitants of these rooms are stricken by the dream of abandoning this depressing and interminable world. Each invents his own special means of escape or at least a way for ignoring the surroundings. This becomes a maniacal idea for each of them...

The Palace of Projects
A unique museum of dreams, hypotheses, and projects, even if unrealizable, the Palace of Projects stimulates the viewers' own fantasies, prompting him toward the resolution of his own tasks, awakening his imagination, providing the impulse for his own creative activity

The Ship of Siwa
The theme 'Ships and Boats of Ancient Egypt' is to be introduced into the curriculum of Siwah schools for the spring of 2005. The teachers will show slides depicting ancient vessels, they will explain their construction and purposes, and will assign the task of drawing them, either by copying these depictions or by improvising on this same theme.

The Life of Flies
Recently, a group of scientists has been proposing a hypothesis as to the direct and unmediated influence of fly associations on finance

The Bridge
There is no single description of what happened - the reports maintain the most adamant discrepancies. However, one inexplicable circumstance was obvious to all: after all of the commotion had subsided, the entire floor in the center of the hall was littered with groups of little white people, constantly exchanging places...

Here's a picture of The Palace of Projects:

My unhealthy state of mind means I'm not capable of very big thoughts these days, but maybe a little later on in the game I'd like to make work like this again. For now, I'm trying to do everything on a much more modest scale, a scale within my reach.

Kisses from Penang.