The Designer of the Year, Sculptor of the Year, Public Education Instructor of the Year… No, it is neither winners of a contest, nor holders of an award. All these titles have been granted to one interesting person – Marina Borodina.
Marina Rostislavovna Borodina never hesitates to answer the question about her occupation. And no wonder. By profession she is a sculptor. She works in the classical direction, and in the genres of contemporary arts. Besides, she is a wonderful teacher and mentor, who for 12 years has chaired the Department for Architectural Environment Design at the Tashkent Architecture and Construction Institute. Today she is Professor, and teaches practically the authored discipline that helps to unlock the creative potential of students.
Marina Borodina is a true innovator, who loves experimenting. Each time, she never stops amazing fans of fine art with new forms, ideas, material, besides all of her works are filled with deep philosophical meaning. The deep, conceptual approach is inherent in everything Marina does. The hardest part, she says, is to overcome the inertia of thinking.
“Creative experiments are like jazz improvisations, you can just feel how it would be. But you try, because material or technique involves you. This concerns teaching as well. It is impossible from year to year, reading from notes, dictate the same to students. I study various theories, teaching techniques of experienced educators, as to teach creativity is not easy,” Borodina insists.
Sculptures and design projects of the master can be seen in different parts of the country. In the recent past with her husband – the sculptor Vasiliy Popov, they turned the Semurg children’s recreation camp into a real fairy-tale world. Until now, the camp’s brand identity is a three-headed dragon, performing the function of the water slides. It was a time of shortage of decorative materials, and author of the project collected the remains of glass-ceramic materials and river pebbles, which later turned into the scales of ‘fire-breathing dragon.’ Even the benches in the camp were made in the form of a caravan of camels, which ‘carried the wood and sat down to rest.’
The sculptor has traditional works as well. For example, female portrait made of tree is now stored in the fund of the Ministry of Culture and Sports. She also created a monument of Turob Tula, portrait of the academician Vosit Vohidovich Vohidov, which is now installed in the Republican Specialized Center of Surgery that bears his name.
“I did not know him personally. The y gave me the photos of the academician, which I laid on the table. At some moment I began to think that I see this man,” Marina Borodina says. “You know the photograph shows person’s one profile, while the sculpture should have a body. I do not know how it happens. Perhaps the person had the way of energy that I imagined him alive. Seeing the finished work, friends, colleagues and relatives said, “Yes, that’s he.”
Marina Borodina is also the author of several prize-winning sculptures. In addition, she made figurines for the Ministry of Health. Winner in the category The Best Surgeon were presented the award in which two hands are holding the crystal heart, which has a symbolic ‘crack’, thread, stitching it, passing through the hands of a doctor, transformed into a living branch.
The sculptor has a plenty of works made of wood, ceramic, but this sophisticated woman mostly preferred to work with not a simple material – metal. Bronze, copper in the hands of the master become pliable like clay. She creates sculptural works even from organic glass. The works of this material are quite impressive.
“When I just get used to one style, direction, material, I already want to try something new. So it was with organic glass. Of course, I did not know in advance how it would be, but I imagined what it should be. This is a living art – improvise and feel how the work leads you,” the sculptor said.
She does not like to deal with what she is not interested. It is this feature of inherent mainly children, pushes the author to new discoveries, unusual creative solutions.
On one of the biennales of contemporary art, Marina Borodina was awarded for the originality of the creative method.
“From copying the image I moved to the conditional style in art. As the ancients said, you need to go the way and forget about it. What does it mean – to accumulate knowledge and, keeping it in yourself, to rise to a new level of creativity,” the sculptor noted.
This new level of creativity gets reflected in new conceptual works of the master. She often leads youth art projects. One of the latest projects was the ‘Designing the Art’ – graphics of shadows, that was included in the last December exhibition ‘The Artist and the Nature’ in the Central Exhibition Hall. The exhibition was based on the theory of random associations of Professor Kunze at the University of Berlin. The exhibition displayed the objects not related to each other within the meaning – cans, bоttles and other junk, when projecting the light on them give the shadow silhouettes appear of cities and other plots. Students for the first time developed the author artistic concept, exhibited their works to the judge of the audience and had an opportunity to look at themselves from the outside.
“I am lucky with the students. I always have active, enterprising young people who, like me, are full of ideas. We have repeatedly won prizes in international competitions of architectural projects in Italy, Kazakhstan, Cyprus, Russia, Turkey,” says Borodina. “Teaching is the process of mutual enrichment. I am not interested from year to year to speak to students the same thing, therefore I am always looking for new and learn.”
For example, the idea of the project of reconstruction of anthropogenic landscape, which was created together with the Department undergraduate Liliya Akhsanova, was born unexpectedly. The sculptor visited Almalyk, the area of depleted polymetallic ore mine. When returning, she began to study the information about the place, and together with Liliya Akhsanova started to develop this theme. The result was a beautiful, ready to implement the project of the park complex, consisting of the ‘upper’ – green area and ‘lower’ area – the beach, located in the crater of the Kurgashinkan mine filled with 22 million cubic meters of fresh water. In hot days the locals come to the water and have rest here. This project is so real and almost justified that received three highest awards of architectural competitions – in Uzbekistan, Italy and Russia.
Marina Borodina’s art exhibitions have been organized in Germany, as well as in Tashkent. She is one of those lucky people who follow the principle: Do what you like and you will not have to work a single day.
