Yuula Benivolski

"My mother always wanted a garden, and now she has one. A poem about family genealogy that highlights the relationship between a name and a place. *** Tatars and other non-Russian communities in the USSR were forced to go through Russification - the spread of Russian language, culture, and people into non-Russian cultures and regions. Forcing the many minority groups within Russia to accept the Russian culture was an attempt to prevent self-determination and separatism. As a result my mother, a Tatar woman born in Moscow, never properly learned her mother tongue or practiced Tatar traditions outside her family home. Composed of super 8 home movies." –Y.B.

Set in a small room, an adolescent woman experiences synesthesia. While she stares at half filled glasses on the table sound replaces her gaze. Harmonic tones exude and induce a trance like state over the woman. Her meditative harmonies are disrupted when an ominous character arrives with the intent to ingest the song. After consuming the beauty the dark character leaves. Left alone, the adolescent woman employs thaumaturgy to lure her song back to life again.