This issue of V–A–C Sreda online magazine presents a work by Vadim Tishin, an interdisciplinary artist and designer from Ryazan who lives and works in Saint Petersburg.

An important part of Tishin’s artistic practice is working with folklore, historical heritage, with local culture and context. Tishin addresses incorporeal images, and his costumes personify, in the literal sense of the word, “things-in-themselves,” ultimately posing the question: do clothes need a person or does a person need clothes?

The hemline of Tishin’s ten-metre Seraphim dress branches out like roots, and the work metaphorically addresses our simultaneous desire and inability to get off the ground and head towards heaven—the image of metaphysical, divine freedom. The fabric of Tishin’s dress is decorated with drawings that depict the wings of a heavenly angel and add a completely different, religious dimension to the costume. In his works, Tishin often alludes to the image of Sophia, the feminine personification of Holy Wisdom—for Tishin, “it is wisdom that is the basic and highest meaning to which one must aspire.”

It is symbolic that this photograph was taken in the artist’s native land, on the territory of the Old Ryazan settlement that was destroyed by the Mongol-Tatar yoke. The dress itself is dedicated to Tishin’s great-grandmother, who was born in the province of Orel.