Tickets to haven

2006
10 parts size 60 by 40 cm, metall, mixed media

2006 "Helen's Shoulders" with Victor Alimpiev, Stella Art gallery, Moscow

‍

Tickets to Heaven represents enlarged versions of public transport tickets, which were in common use until several years ago in Moscow. To validate the ticket, the passenger was required to perforate it with a ticket puncher aboard the metro, bus or tram. The machine left its specific marks, particular to the tram or bus for that journey on that day, enabling the ticket collector to check the validity of the ticket.

‍

Public transport tickets like these, which proliferate in cities around the world, are such commonplace and throwaway objects that they are usually considered unremarkable.

‍

However here, by being substantially enlarged and made of metal rather than card, they gain a monumental appearance - instead of mere tokens, they become totems.

‍

Except for the material and scale, they look just like the paper originals, which demonstrates the neutrality of everyday life emblematised by them: there is no sign of artistic intervention, only observation.

‍

The artist examines the character of the perforated surface, which here turns into a three-dimensional object.

‍

The sequence and configuration of the holes are always different in every ticket and although this has no aesthetic meaning, it gains one when several pieces are put together and the differences between each and peculiarities therefore automatically compared.

‍

The title of the series references the protests in Russia in 2005, when the government introduced a project of monetization of social benefits, including the reduction of subsidised transport privileges for older people, which led to mass protests across the country.

‍