Allies

Changes in the urban environment are inevitable. Their nature varies: some highlight the genius loci, while others erase or question it. The partial development of Matisov Island with high-rise residential complexes alien to its identity has provoked internal resistance among various city residents.

The journey to the island, familiar down to the last step, now feels like a farewell ritual. Global changes have not yet occurred, but a premonition of the loss of the familiar and native is already hanging in the air.

Weeds and trees growing through the asphalt and walls of buildings are becoming a new language of the area. In their manifestation, I see not a narrative of environmental destruction, but a desire for life through quiet resistance to circumstances beyond one’s control. What if we saw these plants as allies? Learning from their ability to find cracks in the system and manifest life where everything seems useless.

Looking at the island through these plants becomes an act of remembrance of the human resistance that existed here. And it doesn’t disappear with acceptance of circumstances, but transforms into a strength that allows us to remain sensitive and alive.

The strategy of quiet resistance is a message in our complex everyday life, a demonstration of a different path: a targeted, persistent rooting in a world where everything is precarious.

The zine was created in the "St. Petersburg in the lens of the young" laboratory. Exhibition copy in A2 format.