Photo: Katia Sytnik
The Bronze Horseman
Olga Jitlina’s video, The Bronze Horseman, questions the status and function of symbols and monuments by putting them in a context of road sweepers keeping clean the area around the Bronze Horseman, a staute of Peter the Great in Saint Petersburg, Russia, commissioned by Catherine the Great. The statue is now one of the symbols of Saint Petersburg and its title refers to a poem of the same name by the well-known Russian author and poet, Aleksander Pushkin.
Olga Jitlina is an art historian, curator, and video artist from Saint Petersburg. She postgraduated at Repin Academy of Arts. Her video works has taken part in several exhibitions, such as Manifesta. Jitlina’s works often investigate labour migration, its narratives and illusions in post-Soviet space, in unconventional ways.
Credits: Ramzia Inosheva, Vladislava Milovskaya, Lyubov Ogly, Rada Ogly, Aynura Satarova, Kamola Farmonova and Zulfia Hamraeva (laughing women). Egor Shmonin and Gregory Sokolinsky (video). Supported by: Cologne Academy of the Arts of the World.