There's No Harm In Any Blessings
Mixed media installation, digital drawings, video, objects (rigid polyurethane foam, soft polyurethane foam, polyurethane resin, wood, projection film)
Group exhibition “Being Safe Is Scary”, Survival Kit 11, Latvian Center Of Contemporary Art, Riga, Latvia
04/09 – 4/10/2020
Curated by Katia Krupennikova
Photos by Madara Gritāne and Līga Spunde
I’m not religious, but I come from a loving family.
One time, after sixteen hours filled with Orthodox chants and spent in a seemingly endless line to experience the Theotokos of Tikhvin first hand, I asked my mom what we were doing there. Her somewhat irked, yet firm reply was: “Believe me, there’s no harm in any blessings.”
“There’s No Harm In Any Blessings” is a multimedia installation that is a reflection on relationships, sense of security, overprotection, and faith in the supernatural as a defense strategy.
In addition to my personal stories, I have used motifs from David Vetter’s, “the Bubble Boy’s”, unusual life, which to this day continues to give rise to questions about the ethics of the experiment.
David Vetter was born on September 21, 1971, in the USA. Since birth, he suffered from severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), which made his survival impossible outside a sterile environment. As soon as David was born, his parents made the decision to put him in a special germ-free chamber until a solution for him acquiring immunity could be found. Instead of just a few months, David spent 12 years, i.e. his entire life span, in the chamber. Even though David was provided with conditions conducive for his survival, life in the “bubble” had a powerful impact on his perception of and relationship with the outer world.
Just like myself, David too came from a loving family, but, unlike mine, his parents were religious. Faith in a miracle became the central motif of his life, and so did his parents’ decision to protect him from the harsh and unsafe world.
The video is a poetic collage of facts and interpretations, using motifs from my life, as well as the story of David Vetter (“The Bubble Boy”). The piece is structured in four parts, and two of them taking place in a dark, abstract space. The dialogues were written by Vetter, and they are from a book about the boy’s life in total isolation “Bursting the Bubble: The Tortured Life and Untimely Death of David Vetter” by Raymond J. Lawrence and Mary Ada Murphy.
When David got very bored, he would write short screenplays, which he would later play out together with his psychotherapist Mary Ada Murphy. The dialogue in the video is a short and simple conversation between a wife (David) and a husband (Murphy), which shows the tragedy of David’s totally sterile, safe, and isolated life, as well as his reaction to it.
There’s No Harm In Any Blessings, digital drawing, image for the exhibition catalogue
There’s No Harm In Any Blessings, mixed media installation, exhibition view, Survival kit 11, Riga, Latvia, 2020. Photo by Madara Gritāne
There’s No Harm In Any Blessings, mixed media installation, exhibition view, Survival kit 11, Riga, Latvia, 2020. Photo by Līga Spunde
There’s No Harm In Any Blessings, mixed media installation, exhibition view, Survival kit 11, Riga, Latvia, 2020. Photo by Madara Gritāne
There’s No Harm In Any Blessings, mixed media installation, exhibition view, Survival kit 11, Riga, Latvia, 2020. Photo by Madara Gritāne
There’s No Harm In Any Blessings, mixed media installation, exhibition view, Survival kit 11, Riga, Latvia, 2020. Photo by Līga Spunde
The Hole In the Heart, digital drawing, 90x90cm
There’s No Harm In Any Blessings, video projection, 15:33 min, loop
The Hands, digital drawing, 110x150cm
