At the exhibition TACTILITE — STONE THAT TICKLES THE GAZE, five videos, jewellery pieces, and installations create a fictional world in which the witch Seraphita helps visitors cope with the frustrations of everyday life. Throughout the rooms of Hobusepea Gallery, I combine the ritual qualities of jewellery with themes drawn from digital culture.

Seraphita is a fictional character who helps me to expand the usual functions of jewellery. The videos at the exhibition are presented as tutorials, and jewellery pieces are created to address specific human desires. For example, someone may want to become more self-confident, another may seek to bring lost intimacy into life, and yet another may aim to cope with aggression.

Without such powerful wearable symbols as jewellery, human life would have fewer sentimental values ​​— gift-giving rituals, tactile moments and personal memories. The actions performed by the witch Seraphita on the screen become a ‘ritual’ involving physicality. It allows to shoot the pieces so that a visitor would be more interested in watching a video rather than a stand-alone jewellery attached to a stand. Thus I consider the physical materiality of jewellery as part of a digital/video one.

Kellie Riggs, American artcritic, curator, artist writes about TACTILITE in the Dutch art magazine CURRENT OBSESSION: ‘Though the physical jewellery objects are the crux of what Popolitova creates, they are also just a part of the total picture or the collective persona she presents when she shares that jewellery online.’

Hobusepea Gallery, Tallinn
04.—30.07.2021

Video effects: Jakob Tulve
Sound design: Andres Nõlvak

The exhibition is dedicated to my father, Aleksandr Popolitov, the artist, restorer, collector and treasurer of Sillamäe Museum, who passed away in 2021.

I THANK
Aleksandr Popolitov and Nadežda Popolitova, Ando Naulainen, Anastasia Dratšova, Doctoral School of Estonian Academy of Arts, Jewellery and Blacksmithing Department of EAA, Estonian Artists’ Association, Elnara Taidre, Karl Kivinurm, Kadri Mälk, Karmo Järv, Keiu Krikmann, Kristo Pachel, Norman Orro, Pire Sova, Raivo Kelomees.