korobit
Korobit [kɐˈrobʲɪt] is a collaborative project with artist Dasha Vasko. Both of us are Russian immigrants, and the project became a way to reflect on displacement, identity and the ways memory bends over time.
The Russian term 'коробить' has no direct English translation, but evokes the feeling of something being warped, twisted, or boxed in, physically and emotionally. It became a metaphor for the transformations we carry within the body and the self.
Through portraits of Dasha in intimate interiors, framed through the female gaze, the work explores feelings of dislocation, transformation, and the body in space. Mirrors are used as a recurring element, reflecting layers of memory and identity, and weaving a narrative of nostalgia, longing, and womanhood.
Poetry by Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam, and Vvedensky is interwoven throughout, bringing voices from the past into dialogue with the present. Dasha’s hand-drawn sketches interrupt the photographs, adding gestures and marks that blur the line between image and drawing.
All images were shot on a single roll of 120 film. This self-imposed constraint shaped the project’s rhythm and focus, and the work is presented as diptychs, with each pair holding a conversation between stillness and movement, presence and absence.
The term 'коробить' serves as a poignant metaphor for the transformations explored in our work, encapsulating the beauty and tension of distorted realities.
The Russian term 'коробить' has no direct English translation, but evokes the feeling of something being warped, twisted, or boxed in, physically and emotionally. It became a metaphor for the transformations we carry within the body and the self.
Through portraits of Dasha in intimate interiors, framed through the female gaze, the work explores feelings of dislocation, transformation, and the body in space. Mirrors are used as a recurring element, reflecting layers of memory and identity, and weaving a narrative of nostalgia, longing, and womanhood.
Poetry by Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam, and Vvedensky is interwoven throughout, bringing voices from the past into dialogue with the present. Dasha’s hand-drawn sketches interrupt the photographs, adding gestures and marks that blur the line between image and drawing.
All images were shot on a single roll of 120 film. This self-imposed constraint shaped the project’s rhythm and focus, and the work is presented as diptychs, with each pair holding a conversation between stillness and movement, presence and absence.
The term 'коробить' serves as a poignant metaphor for the transformations explored in our work, encapsulating the beauty and tension of distorted realities.