Open Jars (Открытые Банки)
Open Jars (Открытые Банки), 2015
Exhibition in the Tea Factory Experimental Center for Contemporary Art, Odessa, Ukraine
22.12.2015 – 31.12.2015
After seven months of pedalling, walking and rolling on train tracks we find ourselves in Odessa, able for the first time to unpack the material and memories we’ve collected so far. We open our bags in preparation for closing the first chapter of our trip.
In the exhibition ‘Open Jars,’ we introduce three geographically distant places to each other: a collection of pocket calendars, small second-hand artefacts and a patchwork of drawings tell together of two flea markets, the Latgale Tirgus in Riga and the Starokon in Odessa, and a Bashkirian village in the foothills of the Ural Mountains.
The juxtaposition of artefacts and images from different places and times reports on our findings as travellers. But rather than tell the story of two individuals, the objects and drawings raise questions about the material and visual heritage of the space through which we travel. The exhibition ‘Open Jars’ allows us to become hosts in a cultural landscape in which we ourselves remain visitors.
(check out our interview with Anna Litman and Alexandra Dorset in the Tea Factory in Odessa here)