Two Birds – An Installation for Reading, 2016

Nicholas Muellner and Anzhelina Polonskaya

Photographs, mirrors, reflective vinyl lettering, wood

This gallery installation, a part of Fate Shifts Shapes,  at the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center,  joined Polonskaya’s stark poetry – in which identity, history and hope are constantly evoked and extinguished – with self-portraits drawn from her dramatically stylized social media persona: the Russian poet as glamorously seductive female icon.  Polonskaya presented a live reading, with translations performed by poet Emily Abendroth, within the reflexive and reflective theatre of the installation.