Text and images used by permission.
Eleven
This is Dek Unu Magazine. In Esperanto, dek unu means "eleven." Eleven images from a single artist. Eleven artists in eleven solo issues in each publication year. Dek Unu publishes the work of a new artist-photographer in each issue. The artist's work and words are featured in individual focus as the sole purpose for each issue of the magazine. Unlike other arts and letters magazines which might look for work from a variety of artists to support an editorial staff's theme, at Dek Unu, theme and imagery are always each artist's own.
Reflecting on her life as a political refugee from Ukraine, Natali Agryzkova says, “We are like sketches on someone else’s paper: still unclear, but already a part of this space.” Artists often describe the role that art-making plays in the process of their understanding life’s disruptions, dislocations, and disasters. Some use their art to clearly document and witness tragedy, some make gaudy satires to mock the source of the trouble. Regardless of mode or technique, artists have found a lifeline in the work as they seek to reclaim power and restore order to life falling apart.
In Hause Spiele (literally,”house games”), Agryzkova sets up intimate, quirky portraits of her daughter as their abbreviated family attempts to adapt, to make a new house in a new country with a new language and community into a home. Most of the “portraits” cover her face, hide her among unfamiliar furnishings, and, in one visual metaphor, under a pile of precariously balanced chairs. In the final image in the series, Natali wraps her daughter in a hugely-oversized robe that, like her new life, doesn’t and may never fit. The artist’s vision is surreal, her mild humor has a bit of an edge, but her message is very clear.