Gaya flashes before me in the dense thicket of the mystical forest of the unknown as if winking and enticing me to follow her. I am pulled along behind her. I make my way, picking up bit by bit fragments of her story from scattered photographs of her life. Knowing only the name Gaya, signed on one of the childhood photographs.
Her powerful energy draws me into an image of a whirlpool and of the hidden, leaving only a flicker of her story.
So I continue to wander through the magical forest of her life, with glimpses of mirages. I dip my face into the water, trying to see, but I see only a trembling reflection in the water, moving water, running away and taking the image with it, not allowing it to be seen in its entirety. I carefully collect history from fragments.
Deep female energy is closely connected with the image of water and the forest, stemming from the mythological female: the spirits of a mermaid and a dryad. For me, this story has become an intersection of mockumentary and emotional perception of coming in contact with the unknown.
Gaya is all I know about the woman in this story. Once in Syktyvkar, I found a Soviet suitcase full of family photos and a few items on the street near a garbage dump in the pouring rain. It was a miracle because I was walking down the street, desperate to find archival photographs. I was in residence but did not want to do documentary work about life in a Komi Republic village, yet I wanted to include the place where I ended up. This is how I met Gaya.
This work was done in 2019 during a residency in the Komi Republic and presented at group exhibition Rom, Syktyvkar, Komi Republic