Yanzhima

The work addresses a sacred site in Buryatia where, according to tradition, the face of the goddess Yanzhima — deity of wisdom, the arts and fertility — appeared in the rock. The place is at once a point of pilgrimage for believers and a popular tourist route, and this doubles the way it is perceived: as sacred space and as public landmark. The goddess is never depicted directly; sacredness is present through fabric, relief and a field of colour. The work registers that passage from religious practice to visual representation, where sacred space exists on the border between the deep experience of faith and the gaze of a spectator.