Ksenia Levina is a student at Christchurch College, who combines her studies with a thriving artistic passion, regularly appearing in exhibitions in the city, which feature her striking portraits. She spent the summer in America with an artist. You may recognise her from the Fashion section, where her party has been featured!
MUSIC ‘No Church In the Wild’ by Romain Gavras.
I prefer the video to the song, because the visuals here transport one to the terrifying energy of a mass uprising. It is violent and graphic, and influenced by the photographic imagery of the Middle East protests. It is the celebration of the human individual against the power of the law, which is impersonated by the anonymous plastic shields and helmets, whilst the protesters have faces, battered bodies, humanity.
ART Rodin.
Where to begin,when Rodin’s work covers almost every aspect of the human experience? His sensitivity to the human body goes beyond words, and, for me, it is this that makes him one of the most incredible artists. He plucks out certain details as though from thin air, such as the bicep that bulges on The Bronze Age boy, the open mouth and closed eyes, creating ï¬ gures that are tense, and still have the softness of living, breathing flesh.
BOOK Lolita by Nabokov.
Lolita is a notorious name; for some a sheer demonstration of genius, for others something dirty, twisted and dark. Ultimately, however, it is one of the most perceptive books written about a man who is in love with something that cannot last and that he cannot ever fully mentally comprehend — a 13 year old girl. The world of Humbert Humbert is so believable because Nabokov’s fabric of reality is complete – detailed and textured.
FILM The East.
This is a thought provoking ï¬lm, not a packaged Hollywood standard storyline which one goes to the cinema to experience, in surround sound, a voyeuristic adrenaline rush. The East shows our society from the perspective of outsiders, and in doing so makes us question things that we take for granted, without veering off into the realm of political ideology. It questions the fundamental need to spend to survive and to be fulï¬ lled.
