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Svetlana’s art in the running for £2,500 bursary

20th October 2017
Art and design

BA (Hons) Fine Art alumna, Svetlana Ochkovskaya, has been shortlisted for the South East Contemporary Visual Arts Network (CVAN), Platform Graduate Award 2017.

Making it to the top five, Svetlana has been selected out of 41 graduate artists from sixteen universities across the South East regions.

Svetlana’s work was nominated by the Aspex Gallery in Portsmouth, one of the five partner galleries of the CVAN, where her work is now on display. Each participating gallery nominated one artist to be considered for the award.

We caught up with Svetlana, who is in with the chance of a year-long development programme and £2,500 bursary when the winner is announced later this year…

Tell us a little about your project?

‘G Planet’ is a video performance embedded within an installation. The audience is invited to walk into the immersive installation representing a post-human environment. Through this, I intend to unify the audience’s disrupted modernist subjectivity.

The pieces are currently featured in the Platform Graduate Award 2017 exhibition, and are placed in a familiar space, but the objects’ function are masked through the environment and a video performance. Through gesture and the physicality of the work, performativity is evident in the work without life performance.

Additionally, UV lighting and the deployment of non-art materials – including expanding foam, cling film, plastic sheets, double bed frame, a baby cot, balloons and my own body – help generate an immersive experience. They are intentionally ambiguous, as they are left for the audience to decide what exactly is being revealed to them. The colour and light are crucial, as they affect our minds and integral for everyday life experiences. Through this work, I would like to illustrate how humans live now and how it may affect the environment, which could end soon.

Svetlana's work from the Solent Degree Shows

Where did you find inspiration for your project?

As an artist, I am inspired and challenged by mystery and curiosity. Art is an adventure – a journey to explore my thoughts, feelings and emotions. My project, G Planet, is connected with the research I was already doing around object-oriented ontology for my dissertation. I was interested in exploring the transformation of objects, materials and my own body.

How does it feel to be shortlisted for this award?

I am really proud and honoured to have been shortlisted. I am also so thankful to Aspex Gallery for the nomination.

How did Solent prepare you for your career?

University gave me the theoretical knowledge and understanding of the fine art subject, and helped me develop my artistic practice and professional identity further.

What is next for you?

I am undertaking the two year MA Fine Art course at Goldsmiths, University of London to specialise in interactive site specific installation and performance art. I would like to make a career as an artist. In terms of my practice, I intend to explore the ‘thingness’ in my research further in order to give the audience the opportunity to see the transformative potential in everyday and invite the viewer to open up a new way of seeing the world and their place within it.

Favourite Solent memory?

I have loved working in a different and exciting environment in the studio spaces at Below Bar.

Any tips for other students?

My advice for all creative graduates is to be proactive, make your own opportunities, dream and take risks.

Further information on the South East Contemporary Visual Arts Network and Platform Graduate Award 2017 can be found here.

Find out more about our art courses here. 

 

 

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