The Invention Of: Reimagined Matter and Meaning

“You have to make the good out of the bad, because that is all you have got to make it out of.”

— R. P. Warren, quoted in Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

Project Statement

‘The Invention Of: Reimagined Matter and Meaning’ is a transdisciplinary art project by cross-disciplinary artist Eva Vasilyeva that uses photography, printmaking, and ceramics to explore the act of reinvention—material, personal, and societal. Its mission is to transform what has been discarded or forgotten into a collective prototype for new meanings, linking circularity with emotional and democratic regeneration.

The project resonates deeply with contemporary issues of displacement. On one hand, we face mass human migrations due to climate change and conflict; on the other, our professional and personal identities are being reshaped by automation and Artificial Intelligence. In both contexts, people are compelled to reinvent themselves—sometimes as a true rebirth, and other times as an illusion. Referencing Adolfo Bioy Casares’s novella The Invention of Morel and echoing Srečko Kosovel’s paradoxical verse, Gnoj je zlato (Manure is gold), this work reflects on how these profound transformations hold different meanings for different individuals. It is both a metaphor and a material embodiment of this fragile process.

Project History & Material Origin

This project has been an active, evolving body of work by artist Eva Vasilyeva since 2024.

The concept originated when Vasilyeva discovered a massive rusted machine that served as a decorative element near the entrance to a private residence. Standing amid the wild energy of spring, the object captivated her attention and imagination. Drawn repeatedly to the site, she felt an almost magnetic attraction to its Stalker-like atmosphere—an echo of the mysterious, abandoned zones familiar from the Strugatskys’ novels and Tarkovsky’s films.

The material for the ceramic works is sourced directly from abandoned agricultural machinery—seeders, harvesters, and tillers. Each ceramic piece is created by taking a direct impression from the machine’s scarred, patterned surface and from wild plants that have found a new home among the remnants of human industry.

These once-functional tools are recontextualized as poetic remnants of labor and survival, transformed by time, nature, and human intention. While the machines occupy the visual and conceptual center of the narrative, they ultimately serve as metaphors for human transitions and the continuous reinvention of meaning amid external change and historical disruption.

Beyond the story of her encounter with these industrial relics, this period also marked a pivotal moment in Vasilyeva’s artistic practice. She began working intensively with a new medium—ceramics. In 2024, she was invited to an artist residency at Center Rog, the main creative hub in Ljubljana, Slovenia (learn more about the residency here). There, she began her experiments with transferring photographic imagery onto clay surfaces.

Clay, as a material, inherently embodies the ideas of creation and rebirth. With the addition of portraiture and transformation, the project evolved into a profoundly conceptual process, where the act of making became an exploration of memory, identity, and renewal.

Exhibitions and Recognition

Selected for the 10th National Thematic Exhibition: Manure is Gold (Gnoj je zlato)

A part of Eva Vasilyeva’s project — a wall composition of ceramic and photography — was officially selected for the 10th National Thematic Exhibition in Slovenia, titled ‘Gnoj je zlato’ (Manure is Gold). Curated by renowned art critic Polona Škodič, the work was featured in the Regional Exhibitions throughout the South Primorska region.

The thematic impulse, ‘Manure is Gold,’ is drawn from the seminal verse by Slovene poet Srečko Kosovel. Kosovel originally transcribed the phrase from an agricultural handbook, transposing it into his constructivist poem Kons. 5, imbuing it with entirely new conceptual dimensions. In recognition of the 120th anniversary of the poet’s birth in 2024 (and the centennial of his death in 2026), Kosovel’s profound contribution to formal and conceptual innovation in art was chosen as the pivotal reference point for this anniversary exhibition.

This recognition not only places Vasilyeva’s project within a national dialogue but also powerfully underscores her engagement with the Slovenian cultural and conceptual heritage concerning the dialectics of value, waste, and creative renewal. In 2025, the exhibition featuring Vasilyeva’s work is scheduled to travel to the cities of Ilirska Bistrica, Izola, and Pivka.

Interactive Installation Prototype

The full-scale installation by artist Eva Vasilyeva is conceived as an interactive wall installation that merges handcrafted ceramic panels, wall vases, and photographic transfers on ceramic and mirrored plates. It is designed to be a prototype for democratic co-creation in exhibition settings.

Shared Authorship and Democratic Participation

The innovation of ‘The Invention Of’ lies in transforming the art installation into a participatory system of collective authorship.

Public Reassembly: Visitors are invited to physically reassemble the wall composition—re-hanging the ceramic pieces across prepared hooks—thus reshaping the collective image.
Expanding Archive: Each new arrangement created by a participant is photographed and documented. This cumulative archive celebrates the ongoing, shared search for new meanings and purpose.
Breaking Distance: This simple, tactile gesture turns spectators into co-authors, dissolving the traditional boundaries between artwork and audience and making art approachable, touchable, and responsive.

Material, Conceptual, and Emotional Circularity

The project, conceived and developed by Eva Vasilyeva, embodies sustainability through cycles of transformation where waste becomes clay and decay becomes beauty.

Material Circularity: By taking direct impressions from obsolete industrial fragments, the project gives non-recyclable remnants an aesthetic second life as durable ceramic artifacts.
Continuity of Meaning: The work redefines sustainability as the continuity of meaning. The entire process extends the life cycle of matter and memory, transforming the viewing experience into an active, shared practice of renewal.

This interactive design by Vasilyeva promotes not only material reuse but also emotional and conceptual continuity, demonstrating that reinvention—of form, meaning, and self—is possible for everyone.