Lada Nakonechna. “Personal Shield.” 2011. Object (metal, wheels). 115 × 80 × 20 cm

Job Description

The idea of this work was realized by Lada Nakonechna during her residency in Zurich, Switzerland. Inspired by the fence that separated residential buildings in the city, she created an object, transforming it into a “personal shield,” already made of metal, with spikes and added wheels.

In this way, the object reinterpreted by the artist from the urban everyday space reveals the segregation of the environment and the desire of city dwellers to make it more exclusive, private, and protected from “others.” Nakonechna scales the issue to a geopolitical dimension and the problem of segregation: how ready are representatives of the European West to accept and understand their eastern neighbors? During the creation of the work, the artist also addressed the issue of labor costs: creating a commissioned object in Switzerland turned out to be expensive, and it was cheaper to deliver the manufactured “shield” from Ukraine. At the same time, the wheels on the fence make it mobile, meaning any barriers, borders, and separations are conditional and temporary. And the spikes placed around the perimeter on one side hint at the protection of special forces units during the suppression of public uprisings and protest actions.