The exhibition “The Poplar Conspiracy.” Act I: “Chora”

About the exhibition

Anna Komarova’s total installation Chora is the first act of The Conspiracy of Poplars, a transdisciplinary exhibition cycle that functions as a speculative investigation into the mystery of three felled trees opposite the gallery’s old entrance.

Originating in a local catastrophe, the project explores its short- and long-term consequences. The curator dispatches letters and fuzzy catkins to artists in different cities, inviting them to unravel the conspiracy. From March to July, poplar agents return, unfolding across five acts—interventions of contemporary art within the building’s fabric: installations, performances, sound works, and participatory practices. The poplars appear as both magical and parasitic organisms, while the bodies of the «conspired» artworks acquire agency and the capacity to influence their environment.

Komarova’s Chora addresses the theme of poplar immortality, peering into the dark matter where they exist in a state of continuous metamorphosis, «unborn and undying.» The artist creates wooden sculptures and assembles them into a total installation—a Platonic chora: a special space of all-receiving nature, where life flickers into being.

Cycle Events

Act I. The Chora. Anna Komarova (Yekaterinburg — Moscow) 

Act II. Poplar fluff, heat, welcome! Research Institute of Dog Business (Tyumen) 

Act III. Shelter. Katya Goryacheva (Moscow) 

Act IV. Bird branch cotton wool sleep. Lera Lerner (Saint Petersburg) 

Act V. The mystery of the four poplars. The man of the sign in Samara. Alek Petuk (Moscow)

Address and cost

The exhibition will be held in Hall A of the Victoria Gallery

Enter is free