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ilia dolgov

Ilia Dolgov is a gardener, artist, and writer. Born in 1984 in Voronezh, Russia. He lived and worked in Saint Petersburg before leaving the country in 2022, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He now resides, dreams, and gardens wherever possible. Ilia holds an M.A. in Psychology from Voronezh State University and a New Artistic Strategies certificate from the Moscow Institute of Contemporary Art. He has received several professional awards and fellowships, the most recent being Andrei Bely Literature Prize. His practice encompasses numerous solo and group exhibitions in Russia and Europe, the initiation and curation of research platforms, series of collaborative educational experiments, and a range of creative and speculative publications.

KUSTISM.COM

I tend gardens because each day I need to be seduced into living. I invite others to trust these gardens’ gaze and voice because the seduction is either shared or airless. It also requires a gentle reciprocal uprootedness both from plants and humans, a quiet unsteadiness of common breath and self-sense. This encounter first happened seven years ago, when one of my conventional artistic projects declined being finalized and transformed itself into a Fennoscandia garden in a strange windowless room—a gathering space for humans, mice, and earthworms equally. The Garden re-introduced itself as a Colchic after fleeing my home, now pocket-sized and shared with a baby tree-frog. The Garden re-introduced itself as Californian after leaving the temporary home, now on a studio desk, well-loved by my MFA peers. I oppose this returning relation of mutual caring uprootedness to the devastating sensation of the life-soil-fabric falling apart around us. Hand in hand—our compound souls and bodies embraced by affectionate green flames—we approach the border