Marina Smorodinova

Film

A « kommunalka » in a city center of Saint- Peterburg: seven rooms, a shared kitchen, long corridors. Between today and memories of the past, this short film retraces a few hours in the life of this apartment. This film is based on encounters with inhabitants of communal apartments and the research of sociologist Ilya Utehin.

Marina Smorodinova

Marina Smorodinova was born in Vsevolozhsk (Всеволожск), Russia.

With degrees from the State University of Saint Petersburg (conflict management) and the École Supérieure d’Art de Lorraine in Metz, she is currently continuing her research at Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains in Tourcoing.

Social interactions in everyday life are the material of her artistic research. She is interested in people in simple situations, like the ones in the plays of Anton Chekhov. Devoid of any real plot, these scenes nevertheless have a strong narrative structure. It is this banality which means the flow of time – emptiness – can be made visible, and that one can get to the essence of what is shown by the image and sound. This plainness of the situation makes it possible to attain a balance between movement and immobility, between sound and silence, between pencil stroke and blank paper. Her work usually takes the form of films, drawings, installations or performances.

Production

Credits