GREAT STONE
Sculptures with cameras made of ropes, weaving in macrame technique.
Photos. Drawings. Tik-tok video
OPA #12 Kolonia Artystów / Gdansk, Poland. 2021
Lesia Pcholka's work explores the intersection of technology, gender and politics, and examines the cultural dichotomy of migration. She draws an analogy between Belarus and China, imagining them as a coalition of cultural spaces and reflecting on how these exchanges reshape everyday practices. Pcholka intertwines these themes by reimagining the macramé technique. Her knotted ropes with embedded cameras symbolise the interplay between control and cultural communication. Her installations, photographs, videos and objects, such as tea tables in the shape of the country's geographical borders combined with security cameras, reveal repressive tactics. Interweaving as a concept of unification within global power structures, bringing into this an emphasis on stereotypically feminine domestic practices of coziness.
The title of the work refers to an industrial hub built by Chinese developers 20 kilometres from Minsk, the capital of Belarus. This new city, called "Great Stone" is a self-contained zone with infrastructure that includes housing, cafés, and even galleries for Chinese workers who come to Belarus to develop business initiatives, as the country lies along the route of the new Silk Road. By reimagining the gallery space as a botanical garden, she draws parallels between the interconnectedness of cultural traditions, like the roots of plants and technological systems. The work thus bridges the physical and digital worlds, as well as the personal and political spheres.
