LOVE YOU TO DEATH
In a world of mounting stresses placed on a dysfunctional relationship with our environment, Yulia Kovanova looks for balance. Based in Edinburgh, Scotland, she explores connections hidden – or so common they’ve become near invisible – between us and the world around. In so doing, she raises questions about this increasingly one-sided relationship and dares us to think beyond rhetoric – and discover why we fell in love in the first place.
Estuaries: rich, complex systems, teeming with life and opportunity. Perfect for civilisation. We’ve been drawn to these areas with a deepening love fed by abundance and utility, shaping them to be a perfect partner. Yet, how much love is enough, and when is it too much?
Kovanova works from the idea that everything in the world is interconnected. When we fail to see the connections around us we tend to break them, leading to destructive outcomes for our environment and ourselves. In looking for these often invisible connections between us and the world around, Kovanova’s attention was drawn to estuaries – exquisite, complicated and beautiful areas of interconnection. These confluences, meeting points of so many factors, result in incredibly rich environments. Fresh water meets salty, land meets water, nature meets culture. These are mysterious, unpredictable and sometimes terrifying places.
It is no accident that the vast majority of the world’s largest cities are built on estuaries; with Britain an island, it has no shortage. Where better to study connection and interconnectedness than the meeting points of land-, sea- and air-based life, environments, human foci and millennia of sculpting the landscape as we have desired.
‘I love the lines, the shapes, the movement of the river-sea intersections – how water, culture, life extends into the landscape and the sea. These are exquisite, complex and beautiful areas of interconnection. As a species we’ve been drawn to these areas, flourished and benefited enormously to their detriment.’
When seemingly different worlds are put together, what is the perfect balance for an agile coexistence and flourishing?
Yulia is an Edinburgh-based artist whose work aims to explore human-nature relationships and investigate interconnectedness of things with insights from ecology and philosophy. She spent her childhood in Siberia, Russia, on the shores of Lake Baikal and in close proximity to the Taiga forest, where European influences interweave with Asian. It is a place on the crossroads of cultures, set between the wilderness of nature and the hustle and bustle of a city, and a natural source of inspiration for her subject. Through her work, Yulia is searching for ways to be present and connected with the world around, breaking through the human-made barriers that she believes often numb consciousness.
Estuaries: rich, complex systems, teeming with life and opportunity. Perfect for civilisation. We’ve been drawn to these areas with a deepening love fed by abundance and utility, shaping them to be a perfect partner. Yet, how much love is enough, and when is it too much?
Kovanova works from the idea that everything in the world is interconnected. When we fail to see the connections around us we tend to break them, leading to destructive outcomes for our environment and ourselves. In looking for these often invisible connections between us and the world around, Kovanova’s attention was drawn to estuaries – exquisite, complicated and beautiful areas of interconnection. These confluences, meeting points of so many factors, result in incredibly rich environments. Fresh water meets salty, land meets water, nature meets culture. These are mysterious, unpredictable and sometimes terrifying places.
It is no accident that the vast majority of the world’s largest cities are built on estuaries; with Britain an island, it has no shortage. Where better to study connection and interconnectedness than the meeting points of land-, sea- and air-based life, environments, human foci and millennia of sculpting the landscape as we have desired.
‘I love the lines, the shapes, the movement of the river-sea intersections – how water, culture, life extends into the landscape and the sea. These are exquisite, complex and beautiful areas of interconnection. As a species we’ve been drawn to these areas, flourished and benefited enormously to their detriment.’
When seemingly different worlds are put together, what is the perfect balance for an agile coexistence and flourishing?
Yulia is an Edinburgh-based artist whose work aims to explore human-nature relationships and investigate interconnectedness of things with insights from ecology and philosophy. She spent her childhood in Siberia, Russia, on the shores of Lake Baikal and in close proximity to the Taiga forest, where European influences interweave with Asian. It is a place on the crossroads of cultures, set between the wilderness of nature and the hustle and bustle of a city, and a natural source of inspiration for her subject. Through her work, Yulia is searching for ways to be present and connected with the world around, breaking through the human-made barriers that she believes often numb consciousness.
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