A chain and a grater. From “Iron Overtones” series

The "Iron Overtones" project is connected to artistic and real-life contexts in equal measure. In the artist's works, we can easily pick out visual elements familiar from childhood: 50 years ago or so, homes across the country were decorated with thin black iron work in the form of shelves, flower pots, and magazine racks. Their graphic nature, lightness, transparency and fragility signified a return to “culture one” after “culture two”, borrowing the terminology of Vladimir Paperny. Now these objects are viewed with a dose of nostalgia. The Soviet sensation of being in step with foreign fashion, design, and with the rest of the world was short-lived, but its naive aesthetics survived the times. Each cheap fence, border railing, window grille and stair banister demonstrates how generic abstract forms relay a lyrical narration, like the musical notes in the design of the music school seen by the artist in Murmansk. Music theory and scales have always had an undeniable cultural status in the eyes of parents, who fail to understand how coercing children to create can kill their creativity. Iron overtones in the teacher’s voice both alienate and develop a bond, which is how an individual intonation emerges. The story told in "Iron Overtones" is about the magnetism of budding friendship that is shyly testing the new boundaries of the relationship. This is when we can share what is most sacred. The adolescent desire for togetherness is so strong that everyone is ready to participate in the potlach, without fully realizing their own and others' generosity. The personal acquires its own shape within the communal by willfully crossing its boundaries. In the desire to become part of the communal body, the individual butts up against the hard and sharp protrusions of reality and thus discovers itself. Marakulina describes the practice of social interactions in her typical reserved and slightly detached manner. By showing the viewer her game, the artist is not suggesting to join in immediately — she is simply demonstrating a degree of trust.