From March 15 to 16, 2023, the Moscow gallery Glubina hosted the exhibition "Forgotten Landscapes," curated by Narmina Askerova. This large-scale artistic event brought together works from 14 visual artists and photographers, along with a grand conceptual audio-literary performance titled "Lost in Between" by artist and writer Elena Timokhina. "Forgotten Landscapes" was dedicated to the artistic exploration of the existential rift between humanity and nature in the broadest sense. The participants in the exhibition, upon discovering this rift, took on various roles: explorers of the rift, apologists of the rift, mourners for the eras preceding this rift, researchers of the rift, and so on. The distance between modern humanity and nature turned out to be a rich field of potential meanings, a mystery, and a resource for drawing both inspiration and despair. "Forgotten Landscapes" serves as a multifaceted manifestation of the inevitable separation, where the positions and roles of people and natural phenomena are interchangeable and elusive, attempting to comprehend the irreversibility of this rift as both a socially nostalgic and eschatological phenomenon. Although the entire event represented a captivating cascade of artistic and performative delight, in this article we would like to focus on four participants who, in our opinion, realised the most distinctive and bold artistic concepts.

“Crying Tree” by Victoria Skutina

 The reflection of the sprawling branches of an autumn leafless tree on a thin layer of water resting on some object in an urban environment. Ripples spreading from raindrops. Sandy park soil. Photographer Victoria Skutina sees the meaning of the rift between humanity and nature in the endless multiplication and deformation of reflections. According to her artistic concept, this rift has arisen due to the fundamental geometric difference between human-made fruits and those of the natural environment. Where nature is complex, fractal, and resists being divided into Euclidean primitives, the human dimension gravitates toward local, predictable forms and images. Of course, Skutina goes beyond merely observing that the surrounding environment is unconsciously complex, while human creation is consciously simple; nonetheless, this is an important assertion. Through her mesmerising and razor-sharp works, the photographer illustrates that this binary opposition exists but seemingly overcomes itself through the effect of one pole's reflection in another. A tree growing by itself can be mirrored on an ugly iron or concrete circle performing obscure social functions. The reflection of the tree is ephemeral, becoming a projection of one world onto another. Yes, this projection can easily lose its clarity with the breeze or a sudden downpour. However, it also signifies that the rift is theoretically surmountable or that it can be reconstructed by focusing on other, less noticeable connections between things and worlds.

"Nature" by Kseniia Chumakova

According to Kseniia Chumakova, the main point of conflict in the rupture between nature and humanity lies not in creating a parallel "human ecosystem" in opposition to the natural habitat. It goes deeper and finds this rupture primarily in humanity's refusal to closely examine what surrounds them. It seems as if humans have fundamentally chosen not to contemplate natural things and to ignore what they do not understand within them. The rupture occurred when humans began to see in nature only what they chose to see. Consequently, Kseniia Chumakova's artistic project appears to be based on restoring to humans the motivation and time to contemplate nature. Her photograph "Nature" is both simple and complex, modest and provocative, compelling one to gaze into it. It seems to insistently exclaim, Identify me! Classify me! Find an explanation for me! This insistence emanating from the concise image of natural texture resembles the calls of New Age coaches demanding a break from the automatism of everyday life. Yet, Kseniia Chumakova also deconstructs this approach. She respectfully acknowledges that the human psyche optimises processes. Her works do not call for total mindfulness, grounding in bodily processes, or working with blind spots. On the contrary, she constructs meditative attractions that should work if not instantly, then in a very short time, rather than becoming a painful ordeal of yet another self-proclaimed course on transforming life in 21 days.

 “Autumn Jungle” by Yuri Kurganski

Yuri Kurganski is not only a talented digital artist but also a remarkable combination of ironic softness and romanticism. Where other artists become sarcastic and cut through the truth, he seeks opportunities to nurture lyricism, pastoral beauty, and humanity. His vision of the rift between nature and humanity is the most extravagant and touching. In his works, especially in “Autumn Jungle,” he comes to the realisation that it is not humanity that has severed its ties with nature but rather nature that has withdrawn into the shadows. Nature, not humanity, initiates the separation. The silent nature is both a mysterious, estranged figure and a mother all at once. Nature is present here, and yet it is absent at the same time. Nature has allowed humans to separate, but it continuously reminds them of its presence through traces and messages. The image of a glowing—almost biblical—tree amidst a dark artificial park, which resembles more of a model or a box filled with plastic trees, inexplicably stirs the heart and contains a powerful critical charge. This critique is subtle, non-obligatory, and indirect, yet it strikes directly at the mark. The rift exists; it is a paradigmatic event, but Yuri Kurganski seems to express on behalf of humanity that yes, we are still not ready for a complete break. We are probing at the unhealed wounds of our bodies and souls; we recall the golden age, but in truth, we have lost it not due to our own fault.

"Lost in Between" by Elena Timokhina

Elena Timokhina operates through a radical and breathtaking amalgamation of performative techniques: physical absence, deconstruction of verbal flow, semantic ambiguity, and post-dramatic structures. However, she does not deny the theme of rupture; instead, she complicates it, finding new depths and possibilities. Her performance becomes a crucial meta-commentary on the exhibition in particular and the global artistic process in general. Elena Timokhina conceptually chose to dwell in the interdisciplinary gap, yet she appropriates this rupture, which means she does not divide herself into human, nature, artist, performer, and writer. The main value of her work lies in the radical acceptance of herself and her lacunae. Her practice outlines new horizons for contemporary art and modern literature, horizons that are daunting to explore, but we must.

The key event of the two-day event "Forgotten Landscapes" was the audio-literary performance "Lost in Between" by writer, artist, and performer Elena Timokhina. This processual, meditative, and cross-genre work combined sound design, spoken word, and immersive participatory practices. The performance literally bridged the exhibition space, conceptual poles, the audience as a liminal entity, and the gallery space. Through her performance, Elena Timokhina summarised one of the main yet unspoken discoveries in understanding the rift between humanity and nature—within this rift, there are also fractures. This non-trivial idea arises in other gaps, in the divides between the possibilities of artistic mediums, in the divides between artists who seem united by the collective body of the exhibition but localised within their personal bodies.