Daria Svertilova Sasha in His Room, 2019

Casa Filipka by Her Clique (February 13-16, Mexico City) is our inaugural group exhibition featuring over seventy works by 16 Eastern European women and non-binary artists. Curated by Filipka Rutkowska, the show is organized as an ephemeral art collection that tells a story of the journey to self [re]discovery. Showcasing a region that’s constantly in transition, where democracies are built on remnants of a communist past, the artists use their work to search for their individual, native understanding of identity, sexuality and belonging. The idea for Casa Filipka was inspired by the iconic ‘Casa Susanna’, a venue that functioned during the 1950s and 60s in Upstate New York, as a safe space for gatherings of trans-individuals and crossdresses. Artistic connections between Eastern Europe and Latin America have been based on their often peripheral social and political position to the world’s superpowers, hence the decision to set the inaugural show in Mexico City. With Casa Filipka we seek to encourage and explore the critical tools one can use for thinking about one’s body and identity.

Visit the show in person February 13-16 (address and opening times will be announced via our newsletter) or see the works in our online viewing room which we will launch on February 10.

Part of the sale proceeds will benefit Atzin, a non-profit organization that focuses on addressing priority needs like education, nutrition, water and health in remote areas of Mexico.

Daria Svertilova’s photographs are part of the “Temporary Homes” series, documenting students living in Odessa’s dormitories between 2019 and 2022. These intimate, gentle works, set in a calm, somewhat dusky mood, portray first attempts at building one’s own house, a house that is by definition bound by its own temporality. Documenting the immediate surroundings of Odessa’s youth, including books, clothes and idiosyncratic items, reflects their personal development as well as their need to live in a world of their own design. The series was halted on the day of the Russian invasion in Ukraine – which forced many of the students to exchange one temporary home for another.