OLGA VOLODINA
Olga Volodina ART
PERFORMANCE "PROPAGANDA"
Performance Propaganda Plovdiv
"The performance 'Propaganda' took place on September 9, 2023, at the Kapana Gallery in Plovdiv. A camera was attached to a hospital chair, allowing the audience to experience the performance directly through the eyes of the actress, Valentina Simčić."
"Artist Olga Volodina’s live performance 'Propaganda' on the streets of Plovdiv, which concluded at the Kapana Gallery, marked the opening of the 2023 Week of Contemporary Art."
The artist brings into the gallery space, and then onto the city street, a figure entirely covered in white paint and bandages. A motionless person sits in a wheelchair, connected to an IV drip with a bag labeled "PROPAGANDA." A black toxic fluid slowly flows into their body — a visual metaphor for the informational poison with which the system feeds the average human being.
The white surface of the body contrasts with the black substance, emphasizing the thin line between good and evil, purity and contamination. The bandaged figure represents a sick, tormented society, weakened by fears and prejudices, having lost the ability for critical thinking. The individual ceases to be a person, dissolving into the imposed agenda: propaganda offers an illusion of community and freedom of choice, while in reality it manipulates consciousness, substituting reality.
Passersby on the street, unaware of the performance, react in different ways. Remarkably, many deliberately try not to look and not to notice — it is unpleasant to watch. And this is telling: the artist brings their illness out of the enclosed museum space into the public realm, forcing random witnesses to confront their own vulnerability.
