Eugenia Moreeva

‘A green plastic waaaaaaatering can…’

      Radiohead

Last fall, partial mobilization was announced in Russia. And that meant – some of the Russian men were obliged to go to war with Ukraine, fight for the dubious values ​​covered by state and ‘humanistic’ interests, in the war they never wanted and never forgave.

My male friends and acquaintances were at risk of being forced to become soldiers of the Russian army. Of being forced to go and to fight and to die – instead of building their beautiful peaceful futures. 

And there was a time when I was genuinely scared for my loved ones – but, obviously, I could do nothing to help them, all I could do was to pray and watch. Luckily, none of my close friends ended up being mobilized, but some of the people I knew did. Including my first Viennese waltz teacher with whom I waltzed for the first time, who teached me the movements and grace and joy of dancing. 

So, when I got to talk to people who were at risk of getting mobilized or to those who were mobilized already (and suffered from it), I would always tell them with sad irony: 

‘If I were you, I would just run away and live in the woods so that nobody could find me instead of coming to terms with this blind cruel system!’

And Russia is indeed full of woods where looking for a couple of deserted soldiers before they die there themselves would be a waste of time. Anything could happen in Russian forests: one could be eaten by a bear or a wolf, stolen by leshy or could simply run out of matches, food and fresh water, die of exhaustion and the lack of conditions suitable for human life.

The ‘Escape’ photo performance series I did with photographer Tadson Bussey (+ with kind and creative help of Emily Roese and Omari Chancellor) shows that my words about running away to the woods could never be applied to real life. As well as one couldn’t actually hide in nature from other humans (who would come and take one to the war) for a long time.

Realistically speaking, it would be impossible for a human being to escape into Mother Nature, and for Mother Nature – to protect their sons from the cruel world of each other. Because people got so separated from nature a while ago, they are no longer organic parts of it like other animals. All that we can do is to pretend that we do belong to nature, that we didn’t lose our connection with it – but it is so obviously false: even wearing camouflages, even if those camouflages are used for the sake of hiding from the war and not in it, we only barely resemble grass, trees, or water. We are too different from nature even if we try to show we are one with it.

Three parts of this project illustrate just some examples of the habitats human beings could not survive in for a long time.

1. If one decides to become a part of a forest lake, they would soon discover that because of having spent their entire life in the consumer world their skin coverage resembles blue Ikea bags much more than water. However even this disguise doesn't help, fake blue skin coverage washes off, camouflage doesn’t last, and a human is left with their human skin.
   They would be almost drowning, unadapted to the watery environment from which man evolutionally originated. Their skin would start feeling uncomfortable, they couldn’t live in the water forever.
   
   

2. If one chooses to run away to the forest and pretends to be a tree, soon the tape with which the leaves are glued to his hands will appear, representing impossible-to-hide human alienation in relation to nature. The imprint of a plastic world with dozens of artificial materials stays with human beings even if they want to leave it all, wherever they go.
   Now, imagine a person who has decided to live in the forest. After naive attempts of pretending to be a part of nature a human being having their human needs would have to fall asleep. As it would be dangerous to sleep on the ground (because of insecurities caused by bugs and predators) they could decide to climb a tree and sleep on a tree instead. However, after falling asleep on a tree, a human being would fall down from it, totally unadapted to life in the wild.
   We depicted this falling down from the tree moments on camera among other things.
   
   

3. If one wishes to merge with the grass on a lovely forest meadow, they would soon realize that their natural camouflage doesn’t exactly match with the surrounding environment (just like it happened in all the other natural surroundings), and that their vision is distorted by consumerism and artificiality embedded in a person from early childhood. Their attempts to crawl like an animal wouldn’t work out, neither would their attempt to hide both from the human world and from themselves.
   There in untouched nature their true face would be revealed – a plastic bag face. The true face, so artificial and yet already so natural to our world. The most truthful new era element, integral part of human self. The part of human self which causes them to suffocate, and which helps them survive.
   
   

Humans went so far from nature, there is an inevitable imprint of civilization, technology, artificiality and fakeness in each of us. Even if something unbearable happens in the human world, such as a war where people kill and die, – nature would be neither the safe place to run away into nor the welcoming environment to hide in.

We are out of place in nature and there is nowhere to escape.