Boris Nazarov - Music for Viktoriya Basin’s Folk Toys Series

The Folk Toys series includes female doll figures and domestic animal figures that provoke questions of sanctity, violence, and destruction that afflict our contemporary condition. The women are presented as reinvented religious iconography to trouble what are traditionally considered sacred poses and gestures. The featured domestic animal figures are those that are often used as degrading language against women (in English and Russian) and common sacrificial animals. While at first seeming whimsical and attractive, the figures allude to warfare, militarism, consumption, and misogyny. What is currently idolized and glorified actually leads to incessant violence and intolerance. A people and culture obsessed with symbols of wealth, weapons, and entrenched gender roles. This mixed-media work is created with oil painting, inlaid mosaics, fused glass, vitreous enamel, and gold leaf on wood. This combination is indicative of how we invent strategies to cope with ongoing fragmentation and divisiveness.