Un-Nature

Film photo, text

2022 - ongoing

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     I was born at the end of the Soviet Union era, when sex did not exist, but there was criminal liability for sex between men. In the project Un-Nature, I allow myself to explore post-Soviet women's bodies and women whose self-identification is different from heterosexuality. I am exploring my nature.

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     The totalitarian system of the Soviet Union, in which I grew up, banned any sexual desire, separately prohibiting gay and lesbian love even at the legal level. Because of this separate ban, even in the law, it confirmed the existence of both sex and LGBT people. 33 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, I still remove these prohibitions from my body and my desires every day, fighting against my own internal inherited totalitarianism.

     My work captures these moments in the form of photos, videos, and poems.

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Crater

In some moments of my life, my nipple is more sensitive.
I would like it to react to her touch.
But sometimes, quite often, it melts into a halo,
As if it’s ashamed.
It becomes almost a crater.
Perhaps because I melt in her hands and I want her to take longer to extract it from the crater,
More intensely, slightly touching with her teeth, and then even biting.
For some reason I’m shy when it doesn’t respond.
For some reason, I don’t say it.

I take off my backpack, and he slides it down my chest, as if stroking it, touching my nipple, which instantly hardens.
The street around me is full of strangers.
I’m not ashamed now.

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2024, Vienna