Progress. Neptune. Island.
2026
A view of the installation at the exhibition “ The Melting Diary” in Narkomfin House, 2026 curated by Maria Kalinina
Progress. Neptune. Island. — is a site-specific project exploring the parallels between the architectural utopia and my personal experience of encountering Constructivism.
The house of my childhood was built on the shore of a bay in the Ob Sea—austere, simple, and fully conforming to the Constructivist canon. But within its ascetic walls, where every square meter counted, our large family began to feel cramped. It seemed as if the architecture itself were pushing us outward—toward where the horizon met the water. An island a couple of kilometers from the shore became our refuge. There, at the tent camp, we spent our summers; there, the sky above our heads became our home. The island itself was, in essence, also a child of avant-garde utopia and the result of a modernist project—it was formed after the area was flooded during the creation of a reservoir.
The project’s name echoes the routes of our childhood: the boat “Progress” and the motorboat “Neptune” carried us from home to the island. Hidden within this union of the technocratic optimism of the Soviet era and the ancient god of the seas lies the key to understanding the modernist dream of a “machine for dwelling.” A dream that sought harmony in the austerity of lines, but found it in the lapping of the waves over the side.
The installation in the communal block of the Narkomfin Building consists of an “Island” of vertical column-like objects made of paraffin, pine resin, wood shavings, sawdust, and materials found within the building. The materials engage in a dialogue with the experimental fiberboard and xylolite of the Narkomfin building itself, while the hidden internal framework of rebar directly references the building’s reinforced concrete foundation.
The rhythm of the “paraffin pines” echoes the system of accent columns at Narkomfin and visually extends the idea of the park surrounding the building, which the architect had previously sought to preserve as an integral part of the living environment. The material and the simplicity of the forms hint at the ghostly presence of a human, transforming the austere Constructivist canon into a fragile, permeable landscape of memory filled with the scent of pine trees.
The installation is process-oriented: its materials undergo gradual change. The metal base will oxidize, and the “pine” material will undergo slight transformations upon contact with the air in the space.
The house of my childhood was built on the shore of a bay in the Ob Sea—austere, simple, and fully conforming to the Constructivist canon. But within its ascetic walls, where every square meter counted, our large family began to feel cramped. It seemed as if the architecture itself were pushing us outward—toward where the horizon met the water. An island a couple of kilometers from the shore became our refuge. There, at the tent camp, we spent our summers; there, the sky above our heads became our home. The island itself was, in essence, also a child of avant-garde utopia and the result of a modernist project—it was formed after the area was flooded during the creation of a reservoir.
The project’s name echoes the routes of our childhood: the boat “Progress” and the motorboat “Neptune” carried us from home to the island. Hidden within this union of the technocratic optimism of the Soviet era and the ancient god of the seas lies the key to understanding the modernist dream of a “machine for dwelling.” A dream that sought harmony in the austerity of lines, but found it in the lapping of the waves over the side.
The installation in the communal block of the Narkomfin Building consists of an “Island” of vertical column-like objects made of paraffin, pine resin, wood shavings, sawdust, and materials found within the building. The materials engage in a dialogue with the experimental fiberboard and xylolite of the Narkomfin building itself, while the hidden internal framework of rebar directly references the building’s reinforced concrete foundation.
The rhythm of the “paraffin pines” echoes the system of accent columns at Narkomfin and visually extends the idea of the park surrounding the building, which the architect had previously sought to preserve as an integral part of the living environment. The material and the simplicity of the forms hint at the ghostly presence of a human, transforming the austere Constructivist canon into a fragile, permeable landscape of memory filled with the scent of pine trees.
The installation is process-oriented: its materials undergo gradual change. The metal base will oxidize, and the “pine” material will undergo slight transformations upon contact with the air in the space.
