Potato 

2023-2024 / women's cultivation practice / zine / exhibition

In the villages, the community grows potatoes season after season, repeating and maintaining the cultivation processes. The residents harvest it, eat together and share it with their neighbours.

Zine

The art publication is the result of observing potato harvesting practices in a Komi village. The artist and my mother, Anzhelika Van-In, made graphic sketches by talking with neighbours. Based on their stories, we have compiled together a series of memories and impressions of villagers about the potato harvesting process. 

This zine was developed as part of a series of field studies on women's cultivation practices in the village environment, becoming a collaborative project between mother and daughter. The zine consists of five interrelated groups: collection, community, storage, preparation.

Exhibition

July 1 - 26, 2024 / National Library of the Komi Republic, Syktyvkar  

(curation) The exhibition Картупель is a cycle of graphic worksheets in hand-printing techniques based on the zine of the same title. One of the central graphics is potato tubers, which preserve the memory of the earth.

The manner of drawing and color palette are dictated by the structure of the earth (soil). This understanding of the image embraces a global dimension, viewing the earth as a common home for all living things, both human and non-human. At the same time, the land acquires a local character, becoming an archive of oral knowledge passed down in villages, from mother to daughter. 

July 29 - August 17, 2024 / Rural library, Kozhmudor 

(curation) After the exhibition was shown at the National Library of the Komi Republic in Syktyvkar, the works moved to Kokvitskaya Gora, to the library in the village of Kozhmudor, where the artist was working on a field research.

Artist: Anzhelika Van-In 
Publishers: Nika Grigorian, Nickolas Daniel da Silva 
Curator: Nika Grigorian 
Collaboration: Tatiana Kolechkova, Nadezhda Kozlova