Once Upon a Time

Concept: Operating as a radical material manifestation within The Shell series, this monumental assemblage deconstructs the domestic myth through the lens of post-structuralist trauma and psychogeography. The title plays on a violent linguistic slippage in Russian («Zhili-byli» meaning «Once upon a time» collapsing into «bili», meaning «to beat/to fracture»), transforming infantile narrative security into a space of clinical psychic defense.

The composition is anchored by a central, cosmic egg-matrix entirely synthesized from jagged fragments of crackled white glass—a literalized representation of a shattered Ego seeking refuge behind a defensive, calcified boundary.

The object maps a profound civilizational and psychological schism, split into two opposing ontological vectors. The male profile on the left represents the Eastern/Byzantine matrix: dark, heavily saturated, heavily coded in deep ultramarine, crimson, and liturgical gold. The female profile on the right embodies the Northern/Nordic episteme: cold, analytical, rendered in pale, luminescent silvers and mint-green hues. Their non-communication is mediated by halos synthesized from fragmented mirrors; these specular crowns refuse traditional sacred iconography, instead violently reflecting the physical reality of the viewer and the exhibition space. The work captures the precise threshold where individual memory is evacuated, leaving behind a rigid, beautiful armor of cultural and psychological alienation.