Thursday Salute to Originals: If Walls Could Talk
Architects, urban designers, and graphic designers alike are sure to appreciate the artistic installations of Russian artist Daria Makarenko. The series ““Ceramic Speaks in the Street” reclaims the lost corners, the nooks and crannies, the voids of urbanity. By replacing a missing stone in a façade or sidewalk with a new piece of material engraved with a short phrase, Makarenko repossesses the inherent meaning in the architectural landscape.
Those unexpected moments when one stumbles upon Makarenko’s small installations are both private and public, beckoning one to ponder the possibilities of expression in shared community space.
“This Stone Used To Be My Heart”
“I Never Had a Plan B”
“True Geniuses Were Never Afraid of Banalities”
“The World is Full of Walls”
“Silence Also Keeps a Message No Need to Break It”
Artist statement:
“Bricks, wall stones, pavement panels and slabs: those are standardized objects, having the certain function and usage, ‘puzzle’ details constructing the architectural and urban environment.
I want to follow the gradational process of ceramic, transferring from architectural element into an object with the highly expressive and communicative power. I create my own bricks and stones, pavement tiles/slabs to use them as mediators between me and a viewer; to brought up and share my thoughts, written fragments, metaphorical statements, which together build up an achieve of our common communicative experience, which keeps space for personal interpretation.
I use street space as a free stage opened for discussions, argument, opinions, and lyrical remarks. My objects as urban interventions not only tag my presence at the particular place but also work together with the surrounding they are brought to. They fill up ‘missing-brick’ spaces, rebuilding the stone voids and exchange damaged elements.”
Daria Makarenko
What makes Makarenko’s work so captivating? Does architecture really need an intervention in order to express emotion?
Image credits: Daria Makarenko