gen y folk
anthropology of digital culture
This installation is a feminist exploration of digital and cultural identity, engaging Gen Y’s unique perspective on heritage, modernity, and self-expression. Using her multicultural roots, Yelena examines how traditional folklore and digital culture intersect in her life, creating a new symbolic language from the artifacts of daily life. Her installation takes an anthropologic approach to digital culture, showing how she navigates the clash between ancestral values and contemporary subcultures, reshaping norms and aesthetics to define her identity. In her project, Yelena reimagines everyday items as ritualistic tools, arranged fantastically to invoke a sense of enchantment and ambiguity. By transforming objects—a Mac computer adorned with ostrich feathers, hair rollers with children´s film projections, and sneakers entwined with hair extensions—Yelena invites viewers to reinterpret the boundaries between the ordinary and the symbolic. Inspired by Russian and Ukrainian folklore, these objects embody her ethnic heritage, blending memory with digital noise to reflect the fluidity of identity in a hyperconnected world. Central to the installation is a blurred image of Ukrainian politician Yulia Tymoshenko, which speaks to Yelena’s childhood experiences with political turmoil in Ukraine and her enduring fascination with political narratives. This political layer subtly critiques how media and cultural symbols shape female representation, resonating with feminist theory’s focus on identity, agency, and visibility. Finally, her design of a transparent raincoat based on a Russian traditional costume offers a visual critique of cultural resilience and adaptation, a modern reinterpretation of tradition that challenges conventional narratives of femininity and national identity. In this magical, symbol-laden world, Yelena encapsulates the struggles and redefinitions that mark the feminist exploration of identity in a digital age.
