The Cursed Triangle
In childhood, the primary source of information for the artist was television. It shaped their worldview, serving as an unquestionable authority that explained everything.
They first encountered mysticism when someone mentioned a woman had seen a UFO near their house. This sparked fear—of aliens taking them for experiments—and curiosity about what the woman might have experienced.
The artist notes how media outlets often build fear of the unexplained and distort reality. A 2018 study by Medialogia and Vedomosti showed that Russian media increasingly promote conspiracy theories, explaining events as secret actions by aliens, psychics, or fictional forces. State channels use political conspiracy theories to manipulate public opinion. For believers, conspiracy theories provide order in chaos and meaning in coincidences.
These childhood fears continue to influence the artist’s perception of reality, causing lingering fear of the dark despite knowing no real threat exists.
The artist discovered the Sandov Triangle, a mystical area near their hometown, through an internet text and a TV show called Secret Territories by REN TV. The show featured stories of strange phenomena like a huge red flying ball, a ghost in the woods, and compass malfunctions in nearby villages.
Motivated by these tales, the artist visited the Sandov Triangle to study it. Through this project, they reinterpret the stories from Secret Territories and bring conspiracy theories into real life via photography. The work is a personal attempt to overcome childhood fears and questions why, in a world without the supernatural, such fears still persist.
An excerpt from Komsomolskaya Pravda reads:
"There have been rumors about the Sandov Triangle for a long time. Supposedly, in the forest, clocks stop and compasses go haywire. It is located northeast of Sandovo, between three villages: Bolshoe Nikitino, Matveytsevo, and Tukhani. The worst part is that people sometimes disappear from this mysterious triangle. Some vanish without a trace, others are found dead."
Viktoria Kovshikova (b. 1992, Ustyuzhna, Russia) is a contemporary artist and independent photographer based in St. Petersburg.
Viktoria studied photography at the Academy of Documentary and Art Photography "Fotografika", where she produced two photo books and a zine. Her work is included in the collection of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art (Moscow, Russia).
Victoria works with themes of personal and collective memory, using photography as a method to explore the connection between the self, the spectrum of personal issues and relationships. Her work not only reflects the world around her, but also becomes an introspective study of the artist herself.
In her work, Victoria uses alternative printing techniques, film and digital photography, as well as performative acts.