Artist: Marina Razheva
Date: 1 June – 1 July 1999
Location: Ural Youth Museum, Yekaterinburg, Russia
Type: Installation
Materials: Oil on fibreboard; borrowed children’s toys; paper, marker, handprints; lamp, threads; recorded sound
Site conditions: Museum hall, artificial light
Duration: One month
Work description
Children’s Room was created for a cultural project organised by the Ural Youth Museum to mark the 50th anniversary celebration of International Children’s Day on 1 June 1999.
The installation consisted of three parts:
Children’s Joys — images on the walls, painted in oil on fibreboard in the manner of children’s drawings.
Tired Toys — groups of toys borrowed from children’s rooms and arranged on the floor on separate sheets of paper. Each group alluded to folklore, literature, mythology or cinema. No toys were intentionally damaged in the making of the project.
The Path — a winding trail of children’s handprints on small sheets of paper, running between the toy groups.
A lamp stood at the centre of the room, with threads connecting it to the wall images. Melodies from Cheerful Horses (Весёлые лошадки) played in the room. The sheets beneath the toys bore handwritten titles and thin outlines of the artist’s hand.
Exhibition leaflet, 1999
The exhibition leaflet introduced the installation:
Dedicated to the 50th anniversary celebration of International Children’s Day.
On the walls of Children’s Room are Children’s Joys — an attempt to speak a language we all once knew.
On the floor are Tired Toys, among which one can recognise old acquaintances: Circe, the Headless Horseman, Snow White and the dwarfs…
Welcome!
Translated from Russian. Exhibition leaflet for Children’s Room, Ural Youth Museum, 1999.
Children’s Joys
Freckles (Веснушки) An orange sun with long rays and small, unusual figures between them.
Yellow Cats in the Grass (Жёлтые кошки в траве) White-outlined cats against a yellow and green field.
Golden Rain (Золотой дождь) Two crowned figures on a red and white field, beneath descending golden streaks.
Good Morning! (Доброе утро!) A patterned deer with blossoming antlers against green, pink and blue stripes.
Tired Toys
The toy groups combine references to folklore, literature, mythology and cinema.
The Hen Laid an Egg (Снесла курочка яичко)
The Russian folk tale of Ryaba Hen. The egg has a face; the hen appears to have sat down on her tail in surprise.
Siamese Koloboks (Сиамские колобки)
Two characters from a Russian folk tale joined like Siamese twins.
Mashenka and the Bear (Машенька и Медведь)
A toy bear tries to feed an unhappy-faced doll from a baby bottle.
Mazai’s Granddaughter (Внучка Мазая)
After Nikolay Nekrasov’s poem Grandfather Mazai and the Hares, in which Mazai rescues hares from a spring flood. The title turns the grandfather into a granddaughter.
The Golden Fish (Золотая рыбка)
A plastic goldfish beside a candy dispenser, referring to Alexander Pushkin’s fairy tale.
Circe (Цирцеюшка)
The enchantress in Homer’s Odyssey, who turned Odysseus’s companions into pigs. The Russian title uses a diminutive form of her name.
Homer (Гомер)
A doll with rubbed-out eyes and a horse nearby. The title invokes the ancient poet traditionally associated with the Iliad and the Odyssey. The horse also refers to Konstantin Ushinsky’s story The Blind Horse. The title functions as a signature.
Medusa Gorgon (Медуза Горгона)
The Greek myth of Medusa’s beheading by Perseus.
The Headless Horseman (Всадник без головы)
After Mayne Reid’s 1866 novel and its film adaptations.
Clash of the Titans (Борьба титанов)
The war between gods and Titans in Greek mythology, represented by broken bodies and separated heads.
Snow White and Her Dwarfs (Белоснежка и её гномы)
After the fairy tale of Snow White.
Total Recall (Вспомнить всё) and Face/Off (Без лица)
References to the films Total Recall (1990) and Face/Off (1997).
Four groups remain untitled: an axe beside two doll heads; a plastic box labelled “Мясомолторг” (Meat and Dairy Trust) containing baby-doll arms and legs; a toy dog beside a Fashion doll’s body with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle head; and a motorcyclist figure.
Critical Response
In 2008, in a profile of the artist in the Yekaterinburg newspaper Uralsky Rabochy, art historian Svetlana Dolganova wrote of Children’s Room. She described the installation’s strange “dollhouse” as “inexplicably attractive and at the same time uncanny,” with “a life of its own, not entirely clear” seeming to unfold. She concluded: “Razheva stands apart.”
Translated from Russian.
Source: Svetlana Dolganova, “Her Name Is Miss Performance” (Её зовут Мисс Перформанс), column “Persona from the Album,” Uralsky Rabochy, Yekaterinburg, 25 June 2008.
Documentation
Colour film prints made in 1999 and subsequently scanned. Grain and colour variations belong to the original prints. White lines visible in some photographs are threads from the installation.
Photographic Record
Photographs of the installation are shown on the project page: Children’s Room.
Related pages
Project: Children’s Room