Julia Beliaeva’s SIREN resembles, in some ways, Edvard Eriksen’s THE LITTLE MERMAID in Copenhagen, and her modern mermaid definitely shares the strong will of Andersen’s uncorrupted original. However, Beliaeva places her heroine far from the seashore; she surrounds her with a dark, dense void. Our little SIREN is deprived of a chance to taste the melancholy of the northern sea view. Instead, her gaze is destined to be anchored to the map of air-raid alerts; for us, this act has become something of a habit. The reverberating noise of sirens is now woven into the Ukrainian soundscape. In a little less than one year of war, it constituted 16,207 warnings.
Presented by KÖNIG GALERIE as part of REIMAGINE TOMORROW, 1954-2024: AI in Context #2, 17–24 November 2024, at Heilig Geist, on the occasion of the AI Biennale in Essen, Germany.
