Author: Марина Ражева

The Red Stag from the Red Earth

2022, Micro Monuments, Minik, Quarry, R², Revealed Realism, Supplemented Realism, Страна оленья

Series: The Quarry as Witness

Bauxite lens of Lake Darvash, Hungary

2022

An Artistic Intervention

Materials used: cotton wool, earth pigments from Darvastó, thread, time.

About the Place: The quarry is located approximately 7 km southwest of the town of Nyirád. It is characterized by its red coloration and is currently inactive. The quarry measures approximately 700 meters in length, 250–400 meters in width, and 15–20 meters in depth.

The extracted material was aluminum ore — bauxite. Bauxite forms as a result of the weathering of igneous rocks in tropical climates. Under extremely hot and rainy conditions, the rocks disintegrate, and their components are transported in solution to areas of sedimentation where the flow of water slows down. The bedrock of the quarry is Upper Triassic dolomite (dating from 227 to 205 million years ago). During the Cretaceous period (143 to 113 million years ago), bauxite-bearing particles accumulated in a bay formed by a depression in the dolomite layer, eventually forming the bauxite lens. Bauxite mining in the Nyirád area began in the 1940s. Ore from the lens was extracted through deep mining and the pumping of karst water. The quarry was closed in 1977. [1, 2, 3]

Artistic Intervention
In 2022, we visited the quarry and brought an artistic presence into its landscape. A small stag figurine, handcrafted from cotton wool and tinted with natural pigments taken directly from the site, was photographed by us in the quarry. Then we left it there — an unauthorized miniature monument. It bore no label, no explanation, no protection. It simply remained — vulnerable, visible, and quietly appropriate.

The red stag in the red earth became a silent ritual of return. A handmade creature, infused with the color of the land itself, placed into the wounded earth like a stitch.

In many mythologies, the stag is a messenger between worlds — between the visible and the hidden, the natural and the artificial, trauma and regeneration.

We see it as a soft footprint on hard ground. A gesture of remembrance, healing, and care.

This action was created by our team as part of a growing series of works exploring the memory of the land, ecological trauma, and myth through Revealed Realism (RR) — a method of subtle intervention, documentation, and co-presence with altered landscapes.

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Old Gyenesdiás Quarry

2020, DearDeerLand, Quarry, R², Revealed Realism, Supplemented Realism

Series: The Quarry as Witness

Régi kőbánya, Gyenesdiás, Hungary

2020

On the northern edge of the Hungarian village of Gyenesdiás, nestled on the slope of Pipa-hegy hill, lies a forgotten landscape — an abandoned dolomite quarry. Its pale grey walls preserve the memory of the ancient Tethys Ocean: more than 200 million years ago, during the Upper Triassic period (237–205 million years ago), warm shallow seas accumulated lime-rich sediments composed of the shells of tiny marine organisms. Through the action of microorganisms, these deposits transformed into a dense, compacted mass of calcium and magnesium carbonates — dolomite.

Covering an area of approximately 400 × 400 meters, the quarry is now silent and overgrown. It is divided by a narrow ridge into a spacious eastern section and a smaller western one. The eastern basin is particularly striking: nature has sculpted ravines, terraces, and canyons whose almost fantastical forms resemble an ancient amphitheater. The slopes and ledges are largely covered with black pine and brushwood, and each groove or outcrop feels like a mark left by both geological time and human intervention.

Once, the quarry supplied valuable materials for construction and industry. Dolomite was used as aggregate in building, as flux in metallurgy, to neutralize acidic soils and enrich them with calcium and magnesium in agriculture, as well as in the production of glass and refractory materials. [ 1 2 3 ]

Today, with its industrial role long gone, the quarry returns to nature — and simultaneously opens itself to artistic contemplation and action. As part of the series “The Quarry as Witness,” we approach such places as living archives: not only of geological memory, but of the potential for interaction between human presence, form, and time.

As part of the Deerland art festival in September 2020, we conducted a series of artistic explorations in the old quarries around Gyenesdiás, Hungary. One of the key events was the creation of The Native Deer — an ephemeral geoglyph formed in an abandoned dolomite quarry on the hill of Pipa-hegy. The project became a spontaneous yet profound collaboration with the landscape itself, where natural forms revealed the image that was meant to appear.

Originally, we planned to work in another pristine white quarry, but upon arrival discovered it was again under excavation. We had to change location quickly and chose the old, forest-overgrown quarry. We descended to a light clearing that intuitively called for action.

The Szamorodni Deer, 2020 (process and details)

Our original sketch — a two-headed elk — didn’t match the terrain. But the natural streams and grooves already suggested another deer’s form. I merely “revealed” it with pigment splatter. Later, a heart appeared in the center, turning into a sun. (Instagram)

The Szamorodni Deer ephemeral geoglyph, ~ 3 × 5 meters. Materials: pigments (ochre, wine, chocolate), water. Technique: pigment splatter. Co-author and photographer: Dmitry Razhev

Meditation inside the deer and Performances around

A week after the geoglyph was completed, we conducted a performance inside its outline — a physical alignment with the symbolic shape. The body tuned into the place, activating its latent presence. (Instagram 1 2 3 4)

Spiral with a Deer Hoof Stamp

Using a sponge stamp in the shape of a deer hoof, we created a double spiral: coiling inward in ochre, then unwinding outward in red. From above, the form resembled spiraling time — folding and unfolding. (Instagram)

Cave Deer

Next to the site, we found a man-made cave — likely carved out during stone extraction. Inside it, we staged a photo performance titled Cave Deer: shadowy images on the walls like memory archetypes. This added a subterranean dimension to the project, deepening the connection between human, stone, and symbol (Instagram)

This work belongs to our practice of RR-method — an approach where the artist does not impose a new form, but listens attentively and reveals what is already present in the landscape. Here, the environment itself acted as both witness and co-author.

Although nothing went as planned — we changed location, abandoned the original idea, and adapted the technique — the result was unexpectedly precise. We simply uncovered what was already embedded in the place.

That’s how the Samorodny Deer appeared — an ephemeral trace shaped by streams, stones, and light. A month later, it vanished without a trace, as intended. What remains is memory, and the documentation.

But most importantly, what remains is the experience of co-creation with the land — where the quarry was not just a backdrop, but a protagonist.

Pusztamiské Gravel Quarry

2020, Quarry, R², Revealed Realism, Supplemented Realism, Страна оленья

Series: The Quarry as Witness

Pusztamiské Gravel Quarry, Hungary

2020

Pusztamiské Gravel Quarry is located 2 km south of the village of Pusztamiske, Hungary. The quarry, approximately 1300 × 1500 meters, is still in operation, though extraction has ceased in some areas. These former work zones are visually divided into two contrasting basins: the southern part is predominantly white, while the northern part displays ochre and orange tones.

The quarry’s sandy and gravelly layers frequently contain fossilized seashells, sea urchins, corals, and other marine organisms — remnants of the warm Pannonian Sea that covered the region during the Middle Miocene, 12–13 million years ago. These deposits, formed by rivers carrying quartz grains and larger rock fragments, became extensive beds of sand and gravel.

The extracted materials — gravel-sand mixtures, crushed stone, and sand — are processed using modern machinery and used in concrete production, paving bases, landscaping, and even as glass-grade sand. The quarry is developed by the Austrian company Lasselsberger Holding Internationale GmbH, with extraction beginning in the late 1990s. [1, 2]

Pusztamiské is not merely a source of raw material; it is a layered archive, a witness to ancient seas, vanished lives, and present gestures. It holds time not only geologically, but poetically — in deer tracks, in wind-carved sediment, in the color of its cliffs, in the movement of bodies and shadows.

Walls the Color of Time
“Walls the Color of Time” is a series of visual and textual observations of the exposed quarry walls, where color, structure, and texture become a chronicle of time. Each stratum carries traces of a sea, a glacier, a forest, or human intervention.

We see these quarry walls as living archives: their palette — ochre, limestone, pale sand, flecks of coal or clay — is not just aesthetic, but a material expression of deep time. The landscape speaks in minerals.

This project combines scientific description with a poetic gaze, recording the moment when the landscape stops being a background and becomes a voice.

Ritual with Shadows
Among the towering walls of orange sand, we staged a performance and photoshoot — figures in deer masks moving slowly across strata, like spectral mediators between epochs.

The quarry’s colors — bleached whites, rusts, ochres — hold the memory of the Pannonian Sea. Its currents, once fast and slow, have left layers like time pressed into pigment. To appear here in deer masks is not masquerade, but listening. The deer, in our practice, is a mediator — one who follows invisible paths, linking the visible with the invisible.

Shadows matter here: they fall across the sand like echoes of past presences. As we move through the light, our bodies become brief projections — alive within the sediment’s stillness.

This ritual is not a reconstruction of history, but an attempt to enter its rhythm, to step into the fluid memory of the landscape and briefly become part of its unfolding.

In the Footsteps of the Deer
In the inactive zone of the quarry, we found a surprising number of deer tracks. One trail followed a path up a slope, ending on a circular platform — likely used by quarry vehicles — where the tracks vanished.

This moment inspired a video. A masked figure follows the trail. At its end, he notices another pair of legs beside him. He slowly looks up — and sees himself. A silent encounter: a meeting of self with self.

Selected frames from the video “In the Footsteps of the Deer” Director & Camera: Marina Razheva · Actor: Dmitry Razhev Editing & Color: Sasha Snova · Music: Vlad Razhev

A Meeting Thread
In another part of the quarry, pale sand mounds formed a soft labyrinth. There, we filmed a second video: two masked figures walk toward each other, each winding thread onto a spool. When they meet, their threads are already tied in a bow — a symbolic guiding thread that led them to each other.

Stills from the video “A Meeting Thread” Directors & Camera: Marina & Dmitry Razhev Editing & Color: Sasha Snova · Music: Vlad Razhev


This work is part of our ongoing practice of Revealed Realism (RR) — a method that merges artistic intuition with research, myth with landscape, and presence with attention. In this approach, quarries are not neutral scenery, but collaborators. The terrain is active, speaking, remembering.

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Design of Remembrance

2017, Design of Remembrance, workshop, Дизайн воспоминаний, мастер-класс

People bring back memories from different journeys, some of which are preserved in material objects. To ensure these keepsakes don’t lose their value over time, it would be a good idea to somehow “immortalize” them.

To piece together the scattered “puzzle pieces of memory” into a complete picture of your experiences, there are design techniques you can learn at the workshop “Introduction to MEMORY DESIGN: Sketching Techniques for Creating Travel Books and Mail Art.” As a result, everyone will have the opportunity to create their own handcrafted travel stories and receive exclusive messages by mail from themselves and their friends.

In my workshop, I talk about what “memory design” is, share techniques for collecting artifacts and turning them into lasting memories, and reveal secrets of cohesive visual storytelling. I teach how to use “mnemonic keys” and demonstrate design techniques that are useful for creating travel journals and postcards.

As a result of the workshop, each participant will have the opportunity to create their own handmade stories of specific journeys and events—tangibly embodied in travel books and “from you to you” postcards.

Memory design can become more than just objects on your shelf. It can help you vividly and tangibly recall your travels, share your experiences with friends, and create illustrations for social media posts—or even for real, printed books.




Иллюстрации к книге Е.Соловьевой «Маргарита едет к морю», художник М. Ражева

From the author:
It’s a universal and ancient human trait — to collect things. To take a little piece of something “as a keepsake.” And then you come back from a trip with your pockets full of notes and sketches, candy wrappers, receipts, tickets, maps, and all kinds of brochures. The most meaningful ones, of course, you’ll recognize even years later — but the rest… who knows? You might just throw them away later, with or without regret. Or you’ll keep them, because you brought them back for a reason… Plus, there are gigabytes of photos and videos.

Sure, you could limit yourself right from the start — “don’t collect junk.”
But aren’t we impoverishing our memories that way?

… And then someone might ask: “How much was the museum entrance?” or “Did transport cost a lot?” or “..?” And there you are — with a café receipt, a photo of the meal, a sketch of a floating bus, and the ticket for it. Or just a note: “Today I walked along the black pine alley.”

The workshop was held twice in the summer of 2017 in Keszthely, Hungary, for participants of the sketching course at Lake Balaton (organized by Natalia Staroseltseva and Konstantin Kashin).

Кардиограмма камня

2016, В планах, мои знаковые, Фотография

Серия из 10 работ.

Фотография. Без обработки. 

Печ, Венгрия, 2016

Фотографии цельные каменных блоков в яркий солнечный день. На просвет изнутри помещения. Каменная тайнопись. Кардиограмма камня.

 

ВСЕ СЕРИИ

Shoot for Color. Colors of Yekaterinburg

2008, Anatomy of the city, R²

June 8, 2008
Yekaterinburg, Russia

Each participant of the photo marathon chose a color and set out to hunt it on the streets of the city.

A one-day photo marathon across Yekaterinburg invited participants to follow a shared route while each pursued a personal color through the city’s streets. Walking together yet apart, they searched for shades of their chosen hue until the city itself turned into a living palette.


Hunters: Elena Gladysheva, Viktor Oborotistov, Vladimir Romanov, Dmitry Razhev, Marina Razheva.

Captured trophies:

Black / White

Red

Green

Yellow

Blue

PanGorMonium

2008, Anatomy of the city

PanGorMonium is a virtual and contemplative instrument for listening to the city.

Study for the Unprecedented Instrument PanGorMonium
Yekaterinburg, 2008
Photography, toned paper, collage. 1682 × 1188 cm

Presented as part of the international collective project Enstruments, September 12, 2008. Gallery ParaRam, Yekaterinburg, Russia. Within the Finnish–Russian festival Together: Ecology of Space

“Conceived in 2008 in Yekaterinburg, PanGorMonium marks the beginning of my long-term research into cities as resonant, living organisms, systems composed not only of architecture and infrastructure, but also of memory, absence, inner sound, and attention”.

Origin and Name

The name PanGorMonium draws on multiple linguistic and conceptual layers.

It echoes Pan-harmonion (Greek, “harmonizing with all”), a symbol of Pythagorean aesthetics and the idea of the music of the spheres — a universal harmony that exists continuously but often remains unnoticed because it never ceases to sound.

The name PanGorMonium is a deliberately constructed term that resists literal translation. Its internal structure reflects the assembled, layered nature of the city itself and combines several semantic strata:

  • Pan (Greek) — “all”, totality
  • Hormao (Greek) — “to set in motion, to activate”
  • Harmony — consonance, proportion, attunement
  • Monos (Greek) — “one”, singular

Together, these elements form an artist-made concept that holds both collective resonance and individual perception.

Concept

PanGorMonium is not a physical instrument and does not produce sound in a conventional sense. It operates as a virtual, speculative, and contemplative instrument, activated through perception, memory, and inner listening.

The work proposes the city as a symphonic body, a resonant field where architectural landmarks, industrial remnants, cultural symbols, everyday details, and vanished structures become instruments that tune attention.

The instrument is composed of multiple urban layers, ranging from collective to deeply personal: architectural landmarks and cultural sites, industrial and infrastructural forms, unfinished buildings and temporary structures, wall graffiti, courtyards, passageways, demolished but remembered houses, old trees and young saplings.

These elements are not fixed. Each participant mentally assembles their own version of the instrument, based on lived experience, memory, and emotional resonance.

In PanGorMonium, the viewer becomes both performer and listener.

There is no external audience. The act of listening unfolds internally, within a personal acoustic field. At times, this inner listening may enter into resonance — consonant or dissonant — with the listening of others, forming a fragile and temporary eco-orchestra.

The work continuously shifts between registers: personal and collective, cultural and industrial, material presence and absence.

PanGorMonium functions as a foundational work within the broader artistic framework Anatomy of Cities.

Within this long-term project, cities are approached as living organisms with their own rhythms, memories, and internal acoustics. Listening becomes a method of research, and artistic practice becomes a form of attunement.

PanGorMonium introduced a mode of working that continues across later projects: the creation of virtual and contemplative instruments that invite attentive presence rather than spectacle.

The Invisible Fir

2006

Museum of Fine Arts, Yekaterinburg, Russia
Christmas Inside Me, 2006
“Art Tree”, live action format

A stepladder.
A body in balance.
Hands placing objects that cannot be seen.

The tree appears through movement.

Press and documentation

“For almost an hour, the artist moved up and down a stepladder, hanging non-existent ornaments on a non-existent tree. The jury called it a ‘conceptual miracle’.”
— Daria Loshakova, IA Apelsin, 2006

“The tree is invisible — it can only be felt.”
— Olga Gentseleva, Vesti Ural, 2006

Recognition

The work was sold at a charity auction.

Archival links

– Museum.ru article (archived, 2007)
– Ural Art Museum archive (2008)