Last Project 2002

Curator: Arsen Savadov's photography, specifically "Last Project" from 2002, offers a fascinating postmodern landscape, don’t you think? The way he merges...everything. Editor: It does demand attention. I’m immediately struck by this odd serenity amid the chaos. We’ve got two ballet dancers in vivid red tutus, these laborers with shovels...It's strangely beautiful. What's your reading of these elements placed together? Curator: Well, Arsen often explores displacement and the clash of cultures. He questions identity. I sense he sets up scenarios that are deliberately disorienting to probe society's layers of meaning. Those two dancers; do they belong? Are they imposing on the place where those men are? How do those characters play within the beautiful landscape that surrounds them? Editor: Exactly. The setting itself feels loaded with symbolism. The dying vines, a carpet casually dropped. I'm curious if you're right, is this intentional disruption about making us question our own narratives? Is that landscape maybe post-conflict? It's hard to escape the feeling of something ending or being profoundly altered. Curator: His images tend to operate on multiple layers like that. You are right, there’s beauty, sure, but also... is it abandonment? Melancholy? A forced calm as old ways make way for something new. This push and pull I think invites reflection. And then this open space allows those gondolas in the horizon to just exist, this symbol of travel. It asks questions about those left behind. Editor: I'd also add the very act of setting up this photo... placing the figures...there's an implicit commentary on how art, maybe ballet, can engage, or disengage, from real, rough spaces and work. "Last Project." A reclamation of value perhaps or even the closure of a past era? I wonder… Curator: Perhaps it's less about closure and more about acknowledging the messy co-existence of these things: beauty and labor, past and future. Thank you, I hadn’t thought about that closure perspective before! Editor: Indeed, Arsen gives us a whole load to digest! It does what great art should.