#st petersburg
Constructing Handmade Teddy Bears with Diana Yunusova
To see more of Diana’s life and work, follow @teddydi on Instagram.
(This interview was conducted in Russian.)
“Any toy animal that’s sewn in the traditional teddy bear style are ‘Mishki,’ which is Russian for ‘little bear cubs,’” explains Diana Yunusova (@teddydi), a teddy bear artist who lives in St. Petersburg, Russia. “Mishki take many forms and styles, but my heart belongs to the worn, vintage-style bears we call ‘tortured.’” Her handmade bears are “teacup-sized,” anywhere from six to seven inches (15 to 17 centimeters) tall, and for Diana, they’re the personification of childhood. “I find myself very encouraged by the fact that in today’s world, wealth is gradually fading into the background,” she says. “People increasingly appreciate work made by human hands, preferring a little bear or a handmade doll as gifts for relatives or even for themselves. These are gifts with a soul, which bring real emotion and joy.”
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Starving and homeless children in Russia in the 1990s, who often became victims of substance abuse, sexual abuse and were actively involved in crime. These scary photos are reminders that the West considers Russia in the 90s “democratic, free and detached from totalitarian communism.”
The capitalism implementation in Russia during the 90’ was probably the biggest capitalism failure of all times. Yeltsin implemented the economic policies applauded by the neoliberal institutions (FMI, World Bank, etc.) With mass privatisations, welfare destruction, destatalisation, destruction of social rights etc. The results were terrifying from all point of views:
As always happens in capitalism there were cartels, trusts etc. That formed a class of oligarchs that put themselves above the State leading the policies towards their interest against the interest of the people. Mostly represented by the Semibankirschina.
-Dramatically drop of life expectancy arriving at 7 years drop in less then a decade for men.
-Dramatic rise in mortality.
-Dramatic rise in self destructive behaviours like drugs and alcohol abuse.
-Mass depression
-Low birth rates due to financial instability and uncertainty
-crime rates rise with entire pieces of the country controlled by organised crime
-Moral crisis well represented by the dramatic increase of prostitution ( Prostitution that was de facto absent during most of Soviet times especially under Stalin but that started again with Gorbachev)
-The debt default of 1998.
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JOSEPH BRODSKY
Don’t leave your room, don’t commit that fateful mistake.
Why risk the sun? Just settle back at home and smoke.
Outside’s absurd, especially that whoop of joy,
you’ve made it to the lavatory–now head back straight away!
Don’t leave your room, don’t go and hail a taxi, spend,
the only space that matters is the corridor, its end
a ticking meter. She comes by, all ready for caressing,
mouth open? Kick her straight out, don’t even start undressing.
Don’t leave your room, just say you have the influenza.
A wall and table are the most fascinating agenda.
Why leave this place? Tonight you will come home from town
exactly as you were, only more beaten down.
Don’t leave your room. Go dance the bossa nova,
shoes without socks, your body bare and coat tossed over.
The hallway holds its smells of ski wax and boiled cabbage,
writing even one letter more is excess baggage.
Don’t leave your room. Do you still look handsome?
Just ask the room… Incognito ergo sum,
as petulant Substance once remarked to Form.
It’s not exactly France outside. Don’t leave your room!
Don’t be an idiot! You’re not the others, you’re an exclusion!
Choreograph the furniture, essay wall-paper fusion.
Make that wardrobe a barricade. The fates require us
to keep out Cosmos, Chronos, Eros, Race and Virus!
1970
.
.
Ph:DanSpb
inst: @danspbway
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