Through his sculptures the artist and researcher invites the viewer to look at the ecological crisis as a natural part of our reality. This is how the planet exists; there is beauty in the ugly, the strange and even the terrifying. “We must treat the ocean responsibly, but at the same time it decides what to be and defines the boundaries of what is acceptable. Garbage islands may very soon become our territories for life,” says Katrin Borisov, curator of the exhibition.

The artist’s works reflect the ambivalence of nature, simultaneously demonstrating its imperfect and beautiful aspects. A powerful visual and conceptual conflict is represented by a sculptural composition combining an octopus and an inflatable ring. In real life it is often the case that helping one creature can inadvertently harm others. The question arises: which represents the greater danger: the octopus that has evoked myths of the giant kraken, or the seemingly harmless inflatable ring that causes significant damage to nature?

Observing how hermit crabs use plastic waste as shell houses, the viewer can fantasize about exoskeletons and manic modifications of the human body in the spirit of postmodern jokes and cyberpunk aesthetics. People replace organs, transform DNA and implant advanced devices in their bodies, becoming cyborgs — these are survival mechanisms in new life scenarios on the planet.

The cathartic goal of the new project is to see what’s happening without horror or any sense of guilt, as an impartial observer. For all this is the ocean’s dream, another phase of its existence; perhaps the familiar world will vanish in an instant when the ocean awakes. As the French poet Joachim Gasquet once wrote, “the world is an immense Narcissus in the act of thinking about himself”, and we are his dreams.

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Aidyn Zeinalov was born in 1978 in Moscow. The artist was awarded a gold medal of the Russian Academy of Arts (2001). In 2002, he graduated from the sculpture chair of the Moscow State Academic Art Institute named after V.I. Surikov. In 2005, Zeinalov graduated from the Faculty of Design of the Architectural Environment of the Moscow Architectural Institute with the profession of a Designer. From 2002 to 2005, the artist was a trainee at the Russian Academy of Arts (in creative workshops under the guidance of a sculptor Vladimir Tsigal). In 2011, Aidyn Zeinalov was awarded a degree of the art sciences candidate (PhD in аrt studies) at the Research Institute of Theory and History of Fine Arts of the Russian Academy of Arts. He is an assistant professor of academic drawing at the Moscow State Academy of Industrial and Applied Arts named after S.G. Stroganov, as well as a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Arts (2012). Zeinalov is the founder and director of the Supporting Foundation of Scientific and Educational Activities Institute of Interdisciplinary Research INTER-ESSE (2011). In 2017, Aidyn Zeinalov was awarded a title of a Full Member (Academician) of the Russian Academy of Arts, and in 2018 — a title of an Academician of the Florentine Academy of Arts. He works as a sculptor, a graphic artist, as well as an author of the architectural projects and of the interior designs. Zeinalov is the author of the monuments of Giacomo Puccini and Giuseppe Verdi installed in Montecatini Terme (Italy). The works of A. Zeynalov can be found in several prestigious institutions, including the Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art, the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Academy Gallery in Florence, the Italian Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), the Medici Palace in Florence, and the Ruarts Foundation in Moscow. His monumental sculptures also enhance public spaces in cities across Russia, Germany, and Italy. In 2017 and 2021 the Ruarts Gallery hosted two of Zeynalov’s solo exhibitions: ‘Swim and Dream’, and ‘The Observer’.