Pre-reviewing of Darja Popolitova’s exhibition

A new exhibition “Magical Hotspot” of the artist Darja Popolitova addresses the themes of xenophobia, sexism and loneliness of the elderly. The exhibition speculates on the themes of spiritualism, social values ​​and Internet culture, finding common ground in jewelry and tactility.

The aim of Darja’s doctoral studies at Estonian Academy of Arts is to investigate how tactile interaction with jewellery affects the viewer through a video medium. “This year I found an artistic approach in the new vlog genre where people on their YouTube channels perform magic rituals or tell how they became eyewitnesses of paranormal events. I think this is an interesting phenomenon. As regards spiritualist-vloggers there are many stylistic elements characteristic not only of the Internet, but also of ancient sacred techniques,” the artist comments. “In the process of preparing the exhibition, I fantasized what problems I could solve with the help of magic on my imaginary channel. The answer came from inside — from my personal experience of a millennial Russian-speaking woman in Estonia. I supported my magical intentions with statistics that I found in several official studies.”

Supervisors: Prof Dr Kadri Mälk, Dr Raivo Kelomees.

Pre-reviewers of the exhibition: Dr Varvara Guljajeva, Keiu Krikmann.