Karina Sofit

Biography

Karina Sofit is an artist who has worked as a documentary filmmaker for much of her career. She has traveled to Ukraine in search of "non-commercial" stories. The next logical step for Karina was contemporary art. At the center of her research were issues of self-identification, gender inequality, and broken family ties. She embodies her ideas in art objects and installations, for the last 2 years she has started working with digital illustration and animation. She already has a history with an art residence, which began in 2018. This year she is coming to the mini-program for the second time and each time she creates a new job.

More about the artist here

Works

Panic Attacks, 2021
Art object, glass jars, plants, thread

Each person as their own Universe, as if under identical conditions this ‘each’ becomes themselves with individual experience, a set of traumas, values and stereotypes. Each is like an individual, but as if on the palm of one’s hand in social networks, creating their image of the desired life and individuality. This project addresses panic attacks and anxiety that manifested en masse during the pandemic. Where each person was like ‘behind glass’ in social networks, yet in reality remained alone, limited by their own physical environment and fears. Forced isolation as a traumatic factor for creating a ‘sterile immunity’ and limiting necessary social contacts. A person - a showcase, a person - untouchable, a person - fear, a person - information and countless other unusual new faces that have altered consciousness.

Tree of Life, 2021
Aluminium, wood, cotton, LED garland

The Tree of Sefirot is as the Planet thinks. A symbolic map of the Universe and its small copy - a person. This manifestation of energy unfolds in the world in stages, transforming from the spiritual to the material, this is the process of ‘rooting’ ideas into reality. 22 informational flows intersecting at 10 points. This refers to the feminine and masculine halves. The future and the past. Death and peace. If one divides the Sefirot into two parts, the upper part with 3 points corresponds to the intellect of a person, while the lower part corresponds to the emotional forces - material attachments. This is a practical model of the Creator and His Creation simultaneously. Many religions and teachings consider themselves related to the authorship of the creation of the structure - the ‘Tree of Life’, particularly the magical and metaphysical. We view it as an informational structure, encoded knowledge and interconnections, with the potential to draw upon eternal wisdom and intertwine it with modern reality. Once a magical structure, knowledge about the tubes was for the chosen - today it can become an element of our daily life - for we have access to information without restrictions.