M HKA Ensembles

Installation

Collection: M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. BK008363).

The title of Irina Korina’s large-scale installation refers to bygone: things and events of the past that are no longer to be regarded as important. Consisting of huge and bright inflatable objects, this simulacrum landscape resembles both the pastoral nature of Austria and Russia. The idealized images of birch groves, golden rye, and other recognized attributes of a patriotic and poetic depiction of homeland, are adjoined with less appealing piles of dirt-tinged snow. Hanged among the flickering trunks of trees, a billboard sign reads “Vorgestern” (“The day before yesterday”), typed in the eerie Gothic typeface.  Imitating the advertising mechanism and referring to traditional symbols of patriotism, Yesterday's snow can be regarded as a reflection on the mechanisms of nationalist representation.