the main hare of the country

“According to the most modest estimates, more than seven hundred thousand people saw Olga Muravina’s “Pink Hare” and “Blue Bird” this year. The audience loved them very much, and the rabbit was even called “The Main Bunny of the Country”. It was him I wanted to tell you more about.

It would seem that everything is very clear and there is nothing to add. And indeed a great number of people at once understood correctly the emotion and message that was put into the work. It is a resounding hymn to the big, the pure, the childish. That tremendous sense of magic, wonder, openness and trust that literally bursts the heart of a child and that people crush in themselves all their lives trying to adapt to the adult world. This feeling, this image, is worthy of being huge because that is its essence.

And yet, I will allow myself to comment and elaborate on the idea of the work, to convey it to those who are accustomed to seeing art with their heads and not their hearts. The pink hare is not at all what you find in the works of pop art. It is not a formal symbol, not an idol, not an attribute of some subculture, not a statement and not an architypization. When we look at the Pink Hare, we do not experience unequivocal emotions. Despite the obvious positivity of the image, we read in it confusion, and even sadness. It is as if he doesn’t quite understand where he is. Coming out of some ideal and kind world, where everyone is open and welcoming to each other, he seems to find himself in a foreign world, where there is not that usual and natural response to a smile, to a kind word, to an extended hand or an open hug. Where people pass each other by like shadows. A gray, gloomy world of ghosts, immersed in their own problems, who have lost themselves and forgotten their radiant inner child. But suddenly, we notice that this is not so, that when we look at him, many people’s eyes light up, a smile of tenderness appears, and faces begin to shine and awaken from sleep. It is as if they want to justify his expectations, that everything is not so bad, that we are alive and capable of reciprocal feeling. The pink hare is a provocative appeal. A call for kindness, openness and responsiveness. And, of course, it is the magic of animation, so characteristic of the work of Olga Muravina.

And lastly about the eyes, yes, that’s no accident either. It’s a reference to magic and mystery, to “secrets,” to kaleidoscopes, to Christmas decorations. These eyes have a depth, a cosmos. They intrigue and invite us into another world, a world of fantasy, which always stays with us, inside us and around us. It is only a little change of attitude to life, a little reconfiguration of the optics, and our eyes will also find this magic, and will emit this radiance.

Sergey Sobolev ( supervisor of CCSD Metaobject)