Qualcuno si è seduto sulla mia sedia
solo exhibition
Quartz Studio
30 January 2018 – 5 April 2018

For the exhibition at Quartz Studio, Vasiljeva draws on the presence of the neighbouring tailor’s shop, letting its territory seep into the gallery through a subtle slippage between the real and the imagined. Elements within the installation echo the atmosphere of a working interior, yet appear slightly displaced, as if fragments of another room had crossed the threshold and come to rest inside the exhibition space.

The title, Qualcuno si è seduto sulla mia sedia (“Someone has sat on my chair”), nods to a familiar European fairy tale in which a visitor enters a dwelling and gradually realises that someone has been there before them. This logic resonates with Vasiljeva’s installation practice, where objects behave less as stable forms than as clues—suggesting gestures, minor disturbances and partially concealed narratives that linger just beyond view.

Several elements in the installation were developed together with craftspeople and small workshops located on the same street as the gallery. Local shoemakers contributed to the making of certain sculptural forms, while an oversized coat suspended in the space was steam-pressed in collaboration with a neighbouring laundry. Such gestures reflect Vasiljeva’s broader approach to site-responsive work, where the immediate environment—its people, skills and everyday infrastructures—becomes part of the process of making, allowing the surrounding community to enter the installation as participants rather than background.