Ru

b. 1981, Vidnoye, Moscow Region. Lives and works in Moscow

Karma, 2019
Installation, dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist

In Karma, Obrazumov continues his investigation into the daily rituals of corporate spaces and the way they reflect the collective unconscious of office culture. This installation explores the consumer trends inspired by green marketing: healthy lifestyle, superfoods, organic and ecological produce. Illogical pairings of objects found in a contemporary office—upside-down lamps filled with artificial grass, superfoods in liquid soap dispensers—invite us to review the new habits of “mindfulness” as unconscious attempts to earn karma points and buy peace of mind in the face of a global ecological crisis.

Karma is the latest in Obrazumov’s series of works devoted to the collective unconscious, from a study of mystical rituals that are supposed to bring luck and wealth (7753191, 2015) to a visualization of the economy of stress and worry in the life of an office worker (Reduced Functionality Mode, 2018). Green consumer trends are presented as markers of ecological trauma: by purchasing certain goods, we hope to mute our anxiety about the environment. A karma audit reveals the merging of consumerism and metaphysics in the life of ordinary people who do not know what else they can do to help the planet.

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