'CRUSH' by Artem Briukhov at CHIRKOV Gallery, Birsk

CRUSH is a project that explores the trauma of life and the process of acceptance.

At the beginning of their life, a person is already doomed to an endless series of transformations which invariably include injuries that life itself inflicts on them. 

For the author, the art serves as the most effective therapy as it combines Western focus on the individual and its meaning with the Eastern practice of accepting what is happening as the natural essence of being.

In this project, Artem sought to locate objects that had been damaged or broken such as car parts mangled by accidents, parts of non-working washing machines, and microwave ovens, trying to get them out of the abyss of oblivion. To provide another chance at that juncture in time when no one is waiting for it. With the help of a combination of ceramics, metal, plexiglass, and silk, he, like a shaman in a ritual, tried to give them not just a second life, but to perform a magical transformation: move them from the realm of solely practical purpose to the very top of aesthetics - in the field of contemporary art, thereby creating new mystical meanings.