Alyona Tereshko

Alyona Tereshko was born in 1986 in the town of Ishim in Tyumen Region. Girl from the Urals (2012) is the video documentation of a performance in which the artist tries to get back to her roots by recalling the songs and culinary traditions of this part of Russia, which forms the border between Europe and Asia. She decorates a table with wildflowers, sits in front of a huge plate of pelmeni (an Asian form of ravioli) and attempts to eat and sing at the same time. The artist sings a folk song about a girl trying to choose a future husband. But the girl’s long search is unsuccessful, the song finishes, the plate is still full, and the song begins again... This return to traditions descends into a horrific form of compulsion and coercion: the food must be eaten, the girl must get married.