Installation view of Faith is a Cascade at Seager Gallery, London (UK), 2021.
Digital Textile Prints with micro-controllers; tinted acrylic and 3D prints, nylon rope; Chromaluxe prints; HD Video and sound 07:15
Exhibition Text:
Sofia Albina Novikoff Unger's "Faith is a Cascade" is an interplay between mythology, culture and queering of urban settings through digitally printed textiles, video work, 3D prints, and pocket-sized tech. The exhibition considers the diarist and gardener John Evelyn's prominent ideas on green cities in the 17th century, disturbed by a raucous stay of Tsar Peter the Great at his manor house in Deptford, London. The despot and his men caused complete chaos, trashing both house and garden. Novikoff Unger draws upon this turbulent encounter while also revisiting Evelyn's ideas, now emerging as smart cities.
The exhibition title refers to a poem in Alice Fulton’s Cascade Experiment that echoes an epistemological drive that, in order to progress as a society and to discover the world anew, it is imperative to look closely at what is around us: “Nothing will unfold for us unless we move toward what / looks to us like nothing: faith is a cascade.” A cascade is a series of waterfalls; a site of falling, renewing, repeating. It is also a scientific term to define a series of chemical reactions that cause a domino effect, triggering the reaction to repeat itself. Faith is a Cascade explores this notion alongside the development of smart cities, oscillating between the different temporalities of the past, as explored in the mythologies of the Tsar’s visit; the present, in the mixing of eastern and western european culture; and the future, through speculative explorations of urban settings.
Edited Text by Alex Hull
Photographs by Paul Chapellier
Installation view of Faith is a Cascade at March Waters, Margate (UK), 2022.
Photographs by Beth Saunders
“This Tsar wears a metallic mask; he has been overlaid with a digital treatment, a photographic negative effect and movement delays that shadow the outline of his body. This echoing of form causes a doubling, bridging the two Peters of past and present, as one haunts the other. Tension builds as the ruin of his raucous trip unfolds: barrels tumble down green hills, fires burn, his gestures become increasingly erratic. Anxieties of what is to come begin to bubble up within me.”
Text by Alex Hull
Faith is a Cascade. (400cm x 145cm) Digital textile print, 3D mesh fabric, microcontroller with screen
Detail of Faith is a Cascade
"Cascade Experiment" (80cm x 180 cm). Digitale textile print, microcontroller with screen
Detail of "Cascade Experiment"
Detail of "Cascade Experiment"
"Kunstkamera, i saw you / saved Piter" (13cm x 13cm x 13cm). 3D print in nylon, acrylic case
“Kunstkamera Boro-da / Boro-net” (13cm x 13cm x 13cm). 3D print in nylon, acrylic case
“Kunstkamera, compass.” (13cm x 13cm x 13cm). 3D print in nylon, acrylic case
Cascade Experiment: Reenactement at Sayes Court, 1698. HD Video and sound, 07:15
"SMART dom fumifugium" (9cm x 6cm x 2cm). Raspberry Pi with screen, acrylic case, video length: 02:00
SMART dom city " (9cm x 6cm x 2cm). Raspberry Pi with screen, acrylic case, video length: 02:00
Detail of "Tentacular Topor"
