ELINA KULIKOVA
The Feeling Is Mutual
(Moscow, Russia)
Exclusively for Art Prospect, artist and theater director Elina Kulikova is creating a new olfactory/musical performance, The Feeling Is Mutual. Today, alienation from the other, from the personal and the political, from labor and from art, is becoming the state of things. In this situation, any sort of mutual feelings are a luxury. We yearn to preserve and draw out these ephemeral and fleeting feelings, as we do any kind of exclusivity. Kulikova’s performance engages in just this practice of “conserving” the ephemeral. After creating a special “mutual feelings scent” and bottling it in a capsule, the artist will share it with all who are interested in an official ceremony, accompanied by a string ensemble.
Elina Kulikova is a theater director and artist currently in residence at the Meyerhold Theater Center. She received her bachelor’s from the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences at St. Petersburg State University and Bard College, going on to study Solo Directing under Boris Yukhananov at the Electrotheater Stanislavsky. Her work has been featured at the Access Point, Archstoyanie, Lubimovka, RemPut, Transformation, and Ploshadka festivals. Select plays and performances include Dostoevsky 200: The Opera (Theater of Nations New Space, 2021), Nature Today (Voznesensky Center, 2021), Every Letter Is a Love Letter (shown at the international arts festival Access Point, 2020), and Eating Rostov (18+ Theater, 2019).