I am a tool of gentrification is an experimental documentary series by Lyuba Matyunina. The main question Matyunina deals with concerns the role of the artist in the gentrification process. How can we turn the current situation into a positive development for the Amsterdam art field and artists? “I am a tool of gentrification” aims to make a speculative proposition to use gentrification within the artistic community, which will open up during interviews and open discussions. It is more than a critical analysis of the situation: it is an attempt to find a solution, to create a platform for discussion and solve situational propositions.

 

Housing syndrome is a video installation about the loss of support, about fragility of the concept of “home”. The work is inspired by the phenomenon of the “last tenant syndrome” - a term denoting a situation when a person, for various reasons, does not want to leave his house for resettlement, and remains to live there sometimes as the only one in the entrance or the whole block. The characters' masks and costumes are an allegory of limitations, fears and traumas that everyone carries with them all the time, and which ultimately determines their way of acting and thinking. What happens to a person when the fundamental concept of "home" leaves? How can you exist in limbo?

​

Bio

Russian artist Lyubov Matyunina holds a BA from Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Fine Art, VAV, Amsterdam, NL. She attended courses in World politics at Gotland University, Sweden, and at the International State University Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Moscow. Matyunina holds a MA in Journalism from Russian State University, I.Kant. Her solo show Carpetologia was presented at W139, Amsterdam (2017). Her film-carpet was part of the ART Rotterdam 2018. “Who can be happy and free?”(2014) received the TENT Academy Public Choice Award in Rotterdam (2014). It was also selected for the main program at the KOROCHE film festival in Kaliningrad, Russia (2014) and for the International Film Festival Rotterdam (2015). Matyunina participated in group exhibitions and festivals including ART Rotterdam (2018), Post Peace at Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart (2016), 5'th Moscow biennial of contemporary art (special project Playing Nature) (2013), Komentatorki / Women Commentators festival of Russian & Ukraine art in Warsaw (2014), Group show Selected at the Castrum Peregrini in Amsterdam (2014), No Lands Man group show in de PUNT, Amsterdam (2013) and Kunstvlaai Amsterdam (2012).

​

@lyubamatyunina