It’s All Written in the Stars, 2020, 4k color, 27 min

Rachel Monosov in collaboration with Maria Monosov

Rachel Monosov’s exhibition borrows its title, It’s All Written In The Stars, from the short film at its core. With elements of science fiction and autobiography, the Monosov sisters, Rachel and Maria, who wrote, directed, and starred in the video work, return to their childhood home. The long journey is intercepted with possible memories of a forgotten girlhood in Bukova, a small village in the Zelenchukskiy province of Russia. This remote town burgeoned around the Special Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), home to what was for several years the world’s largest single primary mirror optical reflecting telescope. To return in 2019 is an experience of going back in time, to a place where time appears to have stopped upon the collapse of the USSR in 1989. It’s All Written In The Stars slowly reveals complicated social etiquettes and unsettling agendas. As the estranged sisters try to reconstruct a forgotten past, fragments of memory offer possible utopian futures.

Text by Catinca Tabacaru

Installation at Galeria Catinca Tabacaru, Bucharest, 2020, It’s All Written in the Stars, 2020, 4K color. 27min

I can’t see the air, 2020, brass and candles, 20 × 13 × 30 cm (8 × 5 × 12 in)

Self-Portrait with Sister Maria upon first return to Russia since 1991 1 & 2, 2020, archival pigment print + artist frame, 28 × 38 cm (11 × 15 in) each

It’s All Written In The Stars, Installation at Galeria Catinca Tabacaru, Bucharest

Doorknob in Hermitage, 2020, 3D-printed plated steel, acrylic jewels, 15 × 6 cm (6 × 2.5 in)

A little man lifted into the sky by a green light, and never returning to this place, 2020, archival pigment print mounted on aluminum, neon + cable, 79 × 119 × 3 cm (31 x 47 × 1 in)