Roman Minin "Carpet of promises"
Promises, vows, covenants, pacts, agreements, contracts, loans, marriages and rituals are mechanisms that bind our society together. They are expressions of our relationships with God, others and self. Responsibility to keep promises is the easiest and most convincing motivator that invigorates and inspires to heroism. Public promises approved of by the majority of society have the potential to dominate the decision-making process and shape important decisions that will affect both individuals and the community as a whole.
In my opinion, they are the number one tool for manipulating society. They are a mental trap most people will readily fall into, just because they find it comfortable. This mental trap millions of ex-Soviet citizens have fallen into is now the root cause of armed conflicts. The worst political scenarios the neighbouring ex-Soviet countries could only imagine are becoming a reality, and this is because the promises are diametrically opposite. Common sense gives way to any foolish public promise made in the heat of passion. My work is a metaphor for the mechanisms that weave each of the promises into the carpet of history.
Roman Minin
Roman Minin is a muralist who remains faithful to the genre in his many technological experiments, from walls and canvases to photography, installations, prints, kinetic sculptures, lightboxes. Large-scale composition named "Carpet of promises" is a mural made in the best tradition of monumental art, dedicated to the current socio-political developments in Ukraine.
The artist, who works with acute social issues, appeals here to the key character in all of his work: Donbass miner, who embodies in the Minin’s interpretation the image of a hero and a human at all. Through this image and its story, the artist speaks both about a particular region and its inhabitants, as well as about global universal problems. The difficult time of radical transformations, political and economic conflicts, breeds a lot of myths and expectations, creates a huge flow of information, but an even greater flow of promises. Our entire reality is conventional, it is composed of treaties, covenants, agreements between states, communities, private individuals, vows to God, other people, ourselves. Minin talks about promise as a driving force, a motivator encouraging action. Public promises are making us hostages, turning into manipulation mechanism. And manipulation is the stronger the wider is the audience, turning promise into a powerful lever of societal control.
"The worst political nightmares that geographical neighbors could imagine are becoming a reality. That's because the promises are diametrically opposed, and the vector of their direction, too. Common sense gives way to any foolish promise made publicly in the heat of passion. This is a magical simplicity. The fate of millions for the sake of a promise. One can only watch the mechanisms that tightly weave each promise into the carpet of history." says Minin.
The very title of the work refers to popular in many cultures tradition to hang carpets on the walls in the house. Ornamented woven fabric traditionally served both mystical amulet function as well as purely practical insulation one. In Soviet times, having lost their ritual significance, patterned carpets were present as a decorative element in almost every other apartment across the USSR. Hence, a new connotation. Carpet as a curtain, carpet as a picture of the world. The metaphor of a curtain is rich with references and associations. This is a curtain between the earthly and the otherworldly life, truth and lies, reality and illusion. In the end it is a theater curtain of the endless performance of our lives.
To wade through a pile of illusions, desires and promises that never materialize, to the point of truth is probably an utopian goal. But Minin sets this goal being an adept of "big" art and believing in its capacity to change the world.
"Behind the canvases of our ambitions, behind the blinds of our pride, behind the curtains of our promises there is new life. In the depths of ourselves we feel this sacred signal of our nature. This signal is not invented by human beings, it is wiser than our promises, it is brighter than our perception of the world and time. This is a signal of the future. And if you feel it, then you have been chosen by the future." (Roman Minin).
Epicness, richness of symbols and graphical expression, characteristic to Minin’s narratives, are directly related to the essence of the artist's works, which are a kind of myths and legends of the mining region, and about a certain historical period, which we are going through right now. Minin fills the socio-historical context with mystical meanings, imparting a fundamental, timeless relevance on the urgent topic of the present. The artist weaves his carpet of history with all its vicissitudes and achievements, victories and defeats, birth and death, mistakes and insights.
art critic Natalia Matsenko
