Фота: Reform.news.
Belarusian street artist Mihas Mishuk has created a new work in Warsaw. This time, his cult character — the diver — has “surfaced” in the waters of the Vistula alongside the Polish capital’s main symbol, the Warsaw Mermaid (Syrenka). The character appears in different places so quickly and unexpectedly that it is time to ask whether he might be living a life of his own. Reform.news asked the artist whether this was a romance between the diver and the local guardian.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a romance [laughs]. Rather, it was an attempt to be more understandable to the local audience…” Mihas replied, explaining how the idea for such a collaboration came about:
“For the first year, I drew and pasted up divers and even took him to rallies instead of a banner. And it seemed to me that he was quite alien in this space, putting viewers off as something incomprehensible. So I came up with the idea of collaborating with a well-known local symbol to attract people’s interest and introduce them to him. It’s always easier when, in a group, someone you know and trust introduces you to a stranger. The Mermaid is a symbol and guardian of Warsaw. And it worked!”
According to the artist, there is no romance between the characters, but they share an environment and help each other:
“They share a habitat, symbiosis and mutual assistance. Although I may be wrong. The diver is in free swim everywhere and generates ideas and meanings himself, while I simply observe him. I hope this work survives until the spring flood, and perhaps it will emerge from underwater next summer.”
Mihas Mishuk added that some Warsaw residents already consider the diver their unofficial symbol: when they see images of him in other cities and countries, they send the artist photos with captions such as: “Oh, we saw our diver there and there!”
In the future, the artist plans to carry out an even more ambitious and long-term project: “In general, there is an idea to create a more durable installation on the banks of the Vistula. Maybe one day it will work out.”
Mihas Mishuk’s divers have already become cult objects in Warsaw, although the artist puts them up in cities around the world. (Their number runs into several hundred.) The character first appeared in Minsk back in 2013 as a symbolic image of the artist himself — a lone person in a shell, moving through the city in a protective suit. In May this year, Mihas Mishuk held a personal “parallel program” at the Venice Biennale, putting up his signature images around Venice.