Nostos

NIKA Project Space is pleased to present Nostos, a solo exhibition by Katya Muromtseva, marking the premiere of her new video work Death Certificate. The exhibition brings together an immersive installation combining moving images, shadow environments, and a series of drawings developed in parallel with the film.

 

Death Certificate, the central piece of the exhibit, is a 30-minute animated shadow puppet film. The film follows a woman who returns to her country of origin after ten years abroad only to discover that, legally, she no longer exists. What unfolds is a surreal journey through bureaucratic institutions as she attempts to reclaim her right to exist. Along the way, she encounters characters who share their own stories, forming a fragmented chorus of voices. This story is inspired by numerous interviews conducted by the artist with people around the world who experienced displacement. The narrative serves as an allegory of migration, bureaucratic absurdity, the instability of identity, and becoming a stranger in one’s own homeland.

 

For this work, Muromtseva developed a distinctive animation technique that combines hand-drawn imagery with paper cut-out shadow puppetry. Using black linework techniques, she draws directly on thin plastic rotating cylinders, which function as the background for the animation. They are activated by light sources that project moving shadows onto a screen. In front of the screen, she places shadow puppets, who present as the film’s primary characters. This effect results in a layered visual language that merges drawing, sculpture, and cinema.

 

The exhibition extends beyond the screen to include a spatial installation of shadow-based works derived from the film, as well as a series of drawings produced during its development. These elements provide insight into the process behind the animation, while existing as autonomous works. They reference iconic imagery from art history, and highlight Muromtseva’s practice of transforming space through the poetic language of drawing and painting to confront social and political issues.

 

The title Nostos, an ancient Greek term describing the journey of returning home, provides a metaphorical framework for the exhibition. Traditionally associated with epic narratives of return, nostos is reimagined here as a fragile and unstable condition shaped by displacement, memory, and shifting modes of belonging. As a historical reference, nostos invokes The Odyssey, where the main hero, Odysseus, undergoes unexpected life-threatening obstacles on his return home after the Trojan War.