dina haddadin - Suspended Certainties

While in Budapest, I became intrigued by numerous abandoned edifices built during the Soviet occupation of Hungary. Consequently, (Suspended Certainties) builds on the concept of construction as a reflection of a society in which one strives to find his place. The work enliven the aura of those unremembered buildings/spaces which represent an era that has faded away along with its social (dis)order.

In the era of the soviets, during the 1930s Soviet Russia under Stalin used architecture, as a greatest form of art like no other to clearly define the power of its nation state and to embody the political will of its masters.

The 1935 General Plan of reconstructing Moscow, was an example. Stalin aim was to make Moscow in the shortest time possible the show piece capital of the first Soviet country.

Therefore, those who purportedly seek to establish a new system first erase the existing historical texture of their territory, both physically and culturally, before marking it with their own symbol of power,… monuments.

Study Sketches of some of the monuments of the Communists era

'The Palace'

100cm x 60cm

2013

A study sketch of the frozen construction site in 1939 of the largest Soviet project ' Place of the Soviets" which was built over the Cathedral "Chrised the Saviuor" rubble ;which was demolished . The project was never realised due to the Nazi's invasion on Russai.

"Fragments of Power'
160cm x 160cm
2013

"Fragments of Power' detail

160cm x 160cm

2013

"Fragments of Power II'
160cm x 160cm
2013

"Fragments of Power III'
160cm x 160cm
2013

"Suspended Monument III"
90cm x 40cm
2013

"Suspended Monument I"

90cm x 40cm

2013

"Suspended Monument II"
90cm x 40cm
2013

In an old factory building from the 1950s in Budapest, where the country was still under the Communist regime, a discovery of an empty black abandoned room where coal was burnt as fuel for heat..

' A body walking,
In a space,
Empty walls;

what has been, or what will be..

and traces of a moment of occupying emptiness;

etched on decay.

A chorus of change,
suspended binaries ,
and empty monoliths of illusion..

Suspended certainty,

In an attempt to occupy the emptiness of the space, ghost monuments were erected from its tension with the structure of the space itself, suspended by the action of writing on the empty walls and moving along with the movement of the hand on the decaying walls..

Hand tied with a rope to the emptiness of the space, controlled and controlling the suspension of the monuments .Who has the power, who owns the space, an illusion of a monument occupied emptiness..

Performance still;

Performative Installation view