Ruarts presents a solo exhibition by Natalia Smolyanskaya – a memory card based on the diaries of a Moscow schoolgirl, the artist’s mother. Although the starting point for the project was family history, the universal and topical nature of the works allow us to approach broader concepts common to all, such as love, security and vulnerability, loneliness and memories.
“Yesterday at school, and today, there was nothing interesting — an entry from 20 February 1940 in the diary of my mother, Moscow schoolgirl Lyalya Kupalova, who lived in the Ministry of Railways building at 22 Spiridonevsky Lane and went to school on Granatny Lane. The diaries are written in small, clear handwriting and describe almost every day from the summer of 1938 to 1945: the last grades of school, the beginning of the war, evacuation to Tashkent, the return, and of course all the twists and turns of personal relationships. There is nothing heroic and nothing significant in them, but for me these diaries are not only and not so much a nostalgic and dear memory, but also evidence of an attitude to life today, right now, which I would like to preserve and pass on," writes Natalia Smolyanskaya.
