Bath Film Festival 2007

Gogolin

Andrew Mania’s installation, Gogolin, at The Holburne Museum of Art, with its themes of memory and displacement serves as part homage to Mania’s mother’s extraordinary journey escaping Stalinist Russia. We learn that in 1939 Andrew’s Polish mother then 4 years old was exiled along with her family to Siberia. They were able to flee war torn Russia by travelling through Uzbekistan, Tehran, Egypt and Jerusalem. Nine years and 15,000 miles later, Andrew’s mother’s family find safety in a Bombay refugee camp. The story is absorbing and Andrew’s presentation is riveting – appropriated mythology. Gogolin offers us a nostalgic enchanting fairytale replete with surreal Hollywood pastiche.

Presented by Contemporary Art Programming. With thanks to Chisenhale Gallery, The Polish Cultural Institute and Hulbert Press.

Image Credit: detail ‘Erased Swastika’, Andrew mania 2005

Gogolin was commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery and Picture This.
Produced through New Moves, a Picture This programme funded by Esmee Fairbairn.