Bougai, Natalia
die Reichweite / 2015
Paper collage
Size: ca. 120 x 170 cm
photography, indian ink, water color, pastel
hand collated
so nah – so fern / so close – so far / 2014
Due to an expansion of the internet and its global communication potentials, more and more long distance relationships arise in which partners live away from each other. Chatting, e-mailing, phoning, texting and skyping help to bridge the gap. Nevertheless, it makes it more difficult to exchange experience, ideas and emotions.
The phrase „so close yet so far“ specifically describes aptly the adventure of a long distance relationship which is real but also a semi-authentic one of our time. It`s a correlation between closeness and distance, reality and virtuality, communication but also being far away from each other.
Such simulated closeness – which essentially is distance – does something to the individual. It can produce a specific intensity of longing and convergence. But it can also alienate and provoke a feeling of moving away from each other.
The work is based on my own experience and on my personal working material.
Video stills
Video documentation (MDR Sachsenspiegel)
Atlantiden / 2013
photographs / 3 light boxes/backlite print, sound / 5.1
(Atlantida is a poetic name of the mythical continent of Atlantis)
Are they true stories or could they have only happened? It remains unclear whether these pictorial stories can be objectively verified or whether they have been invented. When and how do the images intertwine and begin to tell the stories?
I mix the documentary things with the associatively one, I use different materials, which perhaps have been important for a building of a remembrance of something: sound, words, pictures, colors, a specific atmosphere.
[audio:students/bougai/bougai-06-atlantiden.mp3]
Praesentia / 2011
Paper, carton, electric bulb size: hight 31 x width 20,5cm, deep 10 cm
Man and nature: their relationship is based on a mutual permeation, influence and regeneration. The view of man towards his environment is always changing, which is also reflected in art. To visualize this process, I composed my own images using fragments of art history. Such a collage of image quotations creates a new picture of the complex and fragile interplay between man and his environment.
Spinner. Leipzig / Manila / 2011
foto, paper, carton, tape. hand collated size: 18,5 cx 13 cm
exhibition at the Goethe Institute Lyon December 14 – 23, 2011
d wie dora (d for dora) / 2010
Textual work in film format
If we follow the traces of the Third Reich into the former concentration camps, we find little today which has withstood the test of time: Remnants of old buildings and the surrounding nature – both silent witnesses to the past. On another level, pieces of texts have also remained, such as autobiographical novels, reports, or diary entries from the prisoners. Documents, that refer back to the reality at that time. Reflections about place and time, about the personal „I“ can be also found inside; and the surrounding landscape often holds a mirror up to these thoughts. Following the unique sound of these reflections, i have taken individual fragments of text out of their immediate context and reconstructed them anew. Small observations of the sky, the surrounding nature, the state of confusion – everything which can still be found in our current day-to-day life. However, in light of their original context, these records acquire another weight. The told and equally the untold result in an image that can be understood today.
installation view
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over / 2009
ca. 400 photos in film format
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Images from my own, and i expect, from your daily life as well. Observing the events happening around me, i do not remain an observer rather a component, moreover a working component of this society. The playful enactment of the present is an inherent form of reality within our culture today. One could describe it as the playful scenery of happiness. Adventure parks, computer games, pop concerts, television etc. are together the fabricated and continuously developed projection-screens of all our emotions, wishes, and fantasies. Every mass pushes towards becoming structured and to take on order. Initially important, but thereafter resulting in idleness, or negligence, and being under someone else’s control. The sound that can be heard in the background is the original tone of pedestrian trafficlights, which leads the blind safely across the road.
love rifts / 2007
photography and video
Photography
Generations. Gender. The forever old and forever current conflicts. I want to demonstrate a universality, (nevertheless) by means of a personal story. I photographed to observe and to understand. The result is a mosaic of pictures that create an emotional whole in their presentation.
to look at oneself.
to look inside. to step outside. to go further.
what remains are the glances. in the images.
images searching for traces, becoming the language
of despond, of expression itself.
as a continuing dialogue.
language alleviating pain.
spaces which open like wounds, produce references and deflect sight.
patiently scanning, layer after layer.
to stop time. holding still.
wanting to understand.
to feel.
Video
The figures are turning in a circle, connect together by the same rope. And at the same time, they are all independent. For me, the mobile becomes a symbol for the entire situation in the depicted family.
Vita
*1974 in Potsdam / Germany, raised in Russia
Education
1991-1994 studies of history and German language at the Uschinsky Academy in Jaroslavl/Russia
1994-2000 German, Romanic and Slavic studies of language and literature at the Goethe University in Frankfurt/Germany and at the University Central in Barcelona/Spain
2000 Master of Arts at the Goethe University, Frankfurt
Since 2007 Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig
Exhibitions
2015 „Werkschau 2015“, Werkschauhalle, Spinnerei, Leipzig
2015 „Tombola“ Kunstverein Leipzig
2015 „Spontaneous frameworks“, Bükü, Leipzig
2014 „So nah – so fern“/“So close – so far“. Intershop Camp. A project with Opera Leipzig, Ballet Leipzig, Schauspiel Leipzig, HGB, HMT and Museum of Contemporary Art (GFZK), GFZK Leipzig
2014 Gyeongnam International Photography Festival, Art Center, Chanwon Korea
2013 „Picture Show“, Sir Alabama, Leipzig
2013 „drei, drei, drei, bei Issos Keilerei“, Galerie erstererster, Berlin
2013 „Intimate“, Galerie EIGEN + ART, Leipzig
2013 „extra – experimental trails“ Festival for experimental Film- and Video art, D21 Kunstraum, Cineding, Leipzig
2012 ZOOM”, HGB Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig
2011 „Cartes Postales D’Artistes“, Goethe-Institut Lyon
2011 „DORA. An Artistic Approach to the Culture of Remembrance“ a group show at Pasinger Fabrik, Munich and at Universal Cube, Spinnerei, Halle 14, Leipzig
2010 „Nacht des radikalen Films“, International Competition for Radikal Film, Schaubühne Lindenfels, Leipzig
2010 „Die Erfundene“, Kunstraum fett66, Hamburg
2010 No-ISBN. „Salon für Kunstbuch. An Artwork as Enterprise“ at Museum of Contemporary Art (GFZK), Leipzig
2008 F/Stop international photography festival, Leipzig
2008 nominated for the “HGB Studienpreis 2008″ Leipzig
2007 „liebesrisse“/“love rifts“, Academy of Visual Arts (HGB) Leipzig