01 → Welcome
Sofya Chibisguleva (previously known as Studio SFCH) is an artist, writer, researcher, and curator.
Her artistic practice is commentary on the subject of contemporary dislocation — from displacement (or misplacement) of meaning and ethics to forced immigration and cultural appropriation. All her projects are products of extensive research, drawing nods from political science fiction, psycholinguistics, comparative literature, conflict history, and architecture. Once completed, this research work becomes embodied in a continuous series of mixed media artworks (installations, sculptures, video art, written fiction, and lore). The key dynamic which weaves Sofya’s projects into an entirety of artistic practice is the tension between the embodied and the spoken. From threats to spaces.
02 → A spark of rage is born and a bitter taste fills my mouth, 2023
Neglected things fall underwater,
We gather round to watch them fall
◼ This video art piece is the Winner of the Hungarian Contemporary Art Prize 2023 in the category Video/Photo Art.
A spark of rage is born and a bitter taste fills my mouth, originally a poem, is a video piece dedicated to the fear of returning and arriving while looking out of the window of a moving vehicle. It is dedicated to movement with terror, that your homeland will hunt you down and engage you in a game of collective punishment. Written during the war, or rather, many post-capitalist wars which are forever enveloping the planet, it is a call againts ignorance and a reminder about the circular nature of opression.
Neglected things fall underwater
We gather round to watch them fall
Oh what a lovely scenery of horror
How gracefully they howl and twirl
Before our eyes
Relinquished
Of the guilt of witnessing the murder,
Relinquished
Of the voice of questioning
Relinquished
Of the reason to think about what’s coming after
The neglected things demise
Our turn will come, as the train arrives
03 → The Fishing Tale
The first of many undressings is about to begin (the exhibition of liquids, solids and lithium batteries)
Available on Spotify and Apple Music.
The Fishing Tale is a series of 6 lores, recorded as an audiobook, during art residency at Zengården Buddhist Centre in Finnaker, Sweden. Each lore was written during a single day of the artist residency and performed on the same day after the evening ritual. Based on the dialogues between rōshi Sante Poromaa and I as well as the daily routines and contemplations of the residents
04 → The Narrative Method
How to create a story about the workshop lead’s death
The Narrative Method Worksheets, blank
The Narrative Method is a one-day creative writing workshop which took place during Zengården artist residency in Finnaker, Sweden (2019). Developed during the residency, the workshop aimed to help residents to develop creative writing skills though literary meditations, guided by diagrams. The workshop lasted 2 hours and included a meditation of intuitive drawing, picking a character and an emotion of the story, mindmapping the narrative, and collective writing.
One story even involved my (the workshop lead’s) death, which I consider a grand success.
05 → The Bookinprogress
Here the Formation Event took place
◼ This multimedia installation and audiobook series has won the PHACT Art Prize in the category Phygital
The Bookinprogress [Part 1 and Part 2.1 ] is a fiction project and a multimedia installation. Starting with Spring of 2018 it is published quarterly, the future of the narrative defined by the collisions, turmoil and happenings of the real world. Each episode is a reflection on the contemporary phenomena, such as gentrification, crisis of identity and loss of culture presented in a fable-esque manner. You are invited to follow the journey of ‘It’ – the main character who spends its usually long life preserving monuments left after the War over Splendour.
The Bookinprogress Part 1 has received a special feature at Studio SFCH booth at London Art Book Fair 2018 at the Whitechapel Gallery.
06 → The Transfiguration of the Demiurge in the Light of Eternal Ideas
Reflection on the Chinese art factories
Studio SFCH (Sofya Chibisguleva) with Rebecca Thumb von Neuburg and Snail Jin
The Transfiguration of the Demiurge(1) in the Light of Eternal Ideas. 1 - (n.) the controller of the material world; divine artisan responsible for the creation of the physical universe antagonistic to all that is purely spiritual
Fiberglass composite plastic, aluminium, oak and birch plaques, plastic film.
Installation at Arthill Gallery, London, March 2018
This installation was created in collaboration with Munich-based artist Rebecca Thumb von Neuburg, Shanghai-based curator Snail Jin and a Shanghai-based artwork-production studio (not to be disclosed).
In Noveber of 2017 I visited Shanghai for the International Awards for Art Criticism ceremony, where I was part of the Royal College of Art delegation. During our visit, we went to the famous “art factory” in China — one of the many places where big artists hire cheap labour from production studios to create their pieces, to be shipped to the West. The sheer scale of this producion landscape (the size of a town), inspired Sofya and Rebecca to create a ptroject.
With the help of Snail Jin (the WeChat conversation between us was part of the exhibitionb) we invited 2 lead workers of one of the production studios to cast their hands in plaster in “The Creation of Adam” motion and ship the casts to London.
07 → OUT
The citizenship has begun
Stills from Video, 2017
OUT (The Major experience) is a long-term project, which rethinks the philosophy of the Situationists in one of the most hyper-surveilled cities — London. It tests the different notions, such as ‘dérive’, in a contemporary urban setting to reveal the opressive data structures underneath, influencing our every move and decision, especially, when trying to resist them.
08 → The Line
The tide is rising
The Line is a video art piece, set one the Lithuanian shoreline, where once border watch towers stood, preventing the Soviet people from swimming across the sea and escaping. Every night the border officers would draw a line on the sand, using it as a crossing detection device. In The Line, I evisit the narratives which once occupied these northern beaches.
09 → Impossible Survey
The frustration game
Exhibition view and worksheet, Dyson Gallery, 2017 Photo: Julia Lupuscula
A collaboration with Equal Voices Collective
The Survey, 2018
A performative installation with A4 paper, chain-pens, 3 acrylic cylinders and 3 hand-carved and engaved dice cubes.
Dyson Gallery, London 2018
The explanation to this piece is simple: it is a frustration game! Each larga-scale dice contained the answers for you, whether happy or disappointed.