Margarita Maximova presents a reading of her first book You have within you something stronger and more numinous (2021). Throughout her practice, Maximova considers the many ways in which our contemporary image-making technologies and their indivisible link to communication, sociability, and memory-making operate. You have within you something stronger and more numinous is a continuation of that process with a focus on the written word. The book discloses a collection of excerpts from letters sent to her by her mother over the previous decade. The selection of translated texts describes her mother’s venturesome relocation from Russia to Belgium, her childhood in the Russian dachas, close observations of the landscape, and her pursuit to retrieve the connection with her ancestors. Set amongst the political landscape and cultural fabric of the Soviet Union, the telling of her experience reveals the nuances of intimacy, displacement, motherhood, and the psychic traumas that are so often inherited from previous family generations.

Language: English
Duration: 75 minutes

Due to limited capacity, it is required to reserve a seat by writing to office@grazerkunstverein.org

Margarita Maximova (b. 1990, Russia; lives in Brussels and Berlin) is an artist with an audio-visual-based practice. Her work has recently been exhibited at Damien & The Love Guru, Brussels (2021), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2021), Science Gallery, Venice (2021), Courtisane Festival, Ghent (2021), S.M.A.K, Ghent (2020), and Beursschouwburg, Brussels (2018).

The presentation of You have within you something stronger and more numinous at Grazer Kunstverein is made possible with the support of Flanders State of the Art.

Margarita Maximova, You Have Within You Something Stronger and More Numinous, 2021.