Faculty of Art

Sculpture/Installation

Stoyan Barakov

Colony in Transit

Colony in Transit is a conceptual sculptural 3D model of the Art Colony Village Chakali. Its transparent acrylic walls are engraved and hinged with plastic hinges and screws, giving the impression that it may be unfolded, or unpacked, that it is modular and moveable. The colony is represented as an object on the cart in an encapsulated volume, visible only through windows. It is displayed on an elongated plinth specifically built for the work. The work consists of 2 metal-cast morphed animals that recall the North American Bison and the Eastern European Buffalo forms, pulling on a wheeled cart. These ambiguous beasts surface throughout the storytelling, remembering the tales passed to me by my Great Grandmother. The morphed animals pull a carriage upon which the colony is transported and navigated through both time and space, past and present.Furthermore, there is a QR code positioned inside the box. When being scanned with a mobile device the viewer is transported inside the landscape of Village Chakali, which further plays with the colony being in a superposition. It recalls structure with no permanent location, depicting transitional and ephemeral characteristics based on a personal nostalgia through displacement.