Collaboration with Julia S. Goodman
Mixed media installation, 2019
Novo Molokova, Russia

As cities develop, those living there have to constantly shift their feet and adapt to changes. In недалекоartists Gabriele Edlbauer and Julia Goodman bring together a series of enlarged everyday items and giant body parts which intend to trigger the public’s curiosity and enable
ways of usage and activities in the new area of Novo Molokovo. A supersized pair of sweatpants is walking its sausage, illuminated by an enormous lighter with functioning ATM, a concrete tongue sticks out from under a grass “rug” and a very classy bronze foot-shaped trash bin allows toe-by-toe recycling options. While some of the sculptures suggest a more concrete purpose, others offer a wider range of interaction: sitting, leaning, skating, peeing,
resting in the shade, etc.

Terrible jokesters these sculptures are. Clearly recognizable in their shapes but twisted in size and color, they claim to be something, but are always not quite that. Недалеко in this sense is not only used to describe a neighborhood-like experience but also a certain degree of alienation. Not that far, not too far away from what’s understood: why not complicate the recognizable into a form to be used for something different? This confusion could be, after
all, exactly the feeling of being a foreigner in a new country, or a resident of a new apartment and neighborhood.