Kristina Labudova

Profile/CV

My work revolves around ideas of geographical and time displacement. I draw upon ways of how nostalgia and sentiment connect with these ideas, in order to explore political displacement and utopias.

My art work consists of video pieces. I tend to create an illusion of displacement, using methods such as contrast/ similarity, past/ present collision, sound/ image collision, text/ image collision. For example, I investigate outdoor spaces, using filmic methods of observation and documentary, but implying sound of a different time/ space.  I seek ways to bring the visual aspects of the French New Wave and contemporary documentary film together, connecting observation and the notions of subjectivity and the experiment. I focus on analyzing the relationship between the film structure and content, and the film structure in relation to the notion of melancholy, to create a lost dream of utopia.

I take part in site-specific installations in which my video work underlines the notion of displacement. I use London sites as a set for my video pieces. I analyze the collision/ similarity of the places. I also use poetry in my art work, in order to further analyze the notion of nostalgia and use the text in contrast to the image and sound. I want to see how these three elements (sound, image and text) work and contrast with each other.

Poetry is a very important part of my art practice, not only as general inspiration but also as the “screenplay” for my video work: I structure some of my video pieces to the   rhythm, context or use of language/ words of a poem. I am interested to see how poetry  works with my visual work. I am also inspired to use poems in different languages. This is another interest of mine: using foreign languages and contrast them in regards to the use of space in the visual work.

I mainly focus on the ways of installing the art work and also using sound as the embodiment of ideas. I approach my visual work in a minimalist way where the images are meditations of slowness and the attention to details is crucial. There is absence of movement in my visual work, let  the sound be the only narrative. I attempt to create an illusion of uncertainty, using dullness, slow pace, monotonousness  and greyness of the images. 

Website kristinalabudova.co.uk