GRLZ inspiration

The palette of inspiration behind our imagined production of GRLZ includes photography by Michal Chelbin of institutionalised soviet women , the novel Secondhand Time, The Last of the Soviets, An Oral History by Svetlana Alexievich, the recent trail blazing and hauntingly accurate HBO series Chenobyl, the fiercely articulate and rousing art of Pussy Riot, and Victoria’s favourite book as a child, called Circus, by Samuil Marshak, illustrated by Vladimir Lebedev.

Svetlana Alexievich

Secondhand Time, The Last of the Soviets, An Oral History

“For the fathers, freedom is the absence of fear.”

“The revolution was nothing but spectacle. A play they put on for the people.  I remember the total indifference of anyone you talked to.  Everyone was just waiting it out.”

“There’s no line between peacetime and wartime, we’re always at war… Human life- you can spit and rub someone out. Just like prison….”

Pussy Riot’s Closing Statement

At the Moscow Khamovniki District Court, 8th August 2012.

“… And right here, in this closing statement, I would like to describe my firsthand experience of running afoul of this system. Our schooling, which is where the personality begins to form in a social context, effectively ignores any particularities of the individual. There is no “individual approach,” no study of culture, of philosophy, of basic knowledge about civic society. Officially, these subjects do exist, but they are still taught according to the Soviet model. And as a result, we see the marginalisation of contemporary art in the public consciousness, a lack of motivation for philosophical thought, and gender stereotyping. The concept of the human being as a citizen gets swept away into a distant corner.

Today’s educational institutions teach people, from childhood, to live as automatons. Not to pose the crucial questions consistent with their age. They inculcate cruelty and intolerance of nonconformity. Beginning in childhood, we forget our freedom.

I have personal experience with psychiatric clinics for minors. And I can say with conviction that any teenager who shows any signs of active nonconformity can end up in such a place. A certain percentage of the kids there are from orphanages.

In our country, it’s considered entirely normal to commit a child who has tried to escape from an orphanage to a psychiatric clinic. And they treat them using extremely powerful sedatives like Aminazin, which was also used to subdue Soviet dissidents in the ’70s.

This is especially traumatising given the overall punitive tendency and the absence of any real psychological assistance. All interactions are based on the exploitation of the children’s feelings of fear and forced submission. And as a result, their own cruelty increases many times over. Many children there are illiterate, but no one makes any effort to battle this—to the contrary, every last drop of motivation for personal development is discouraged. The individual closes off entirely and loses faith in the world…”

— Maria Alyokhina

Circus

A children’s book by Samuil Marshak, illustrated by Vladimir Lebedev