Azbuka Strikes Back

Some sounds have homes. Others don’t. We tend to imagine sounds as naturally housed by let­ters of an alphabet. But sometimes the shapes given to sounds can be more like a prison than a place to call home. Between 1927 and 1991, the lan­guages of 25 mil­lion peoples in the Soviet empire chan­ged alphabets once, twice, and sometimes even three times. This is the story of fugitive sounds in search of shelter… 

 

The let­ters on the carpet represent dif­ferent Cyril­lic let­ters or graphic forms imposed by the Soviets on non-​Russian speaking peoples.



Slavs and Tatars
Azbuka Strikes Back

2023

wool yarn

196 × 264 cm