"Needle, egg, island" is a collaborative long-term project referring to a folklore immortal character hiding his death in a needle in an egg on an island and contemplating the reversal of time in which we find ourselves today. Which way to go - like in a fairy tale - if the beginning and the end are reversed? How do things exist that lose their usual meanings, and people without developed guidelines? The world is deconstructed beyond recognition, and in this transformational field we act blindly, improvising and reinventing everything that surrounds us, including ourselves.

Objects (mundane things, clothing), spaces (studios, interiors, walls and floors) and people (crew and performers) are involved on an equal footing in this project. The starting point is the idea of ​​procedurality and the lack of goal setting for all participants.

This is a structured improvisation. The frame is set by the theme, shooting location, set of participants (living and non-living), a selection of clothes and objects created right on the set; sometimes sound (sounding script) is also involved in the case. In the process of shooting, we collect images that are dictated not by commercial tasks, but by spontaneous processes / accidents / play of all participants on set during the time allotted for shoot.

This project is at the same time a performance, a filming, a theatrical action and a playground in which any non-conformal solutions are possible, giving all participants space for essential and external freedom, releasing the inner child and allowing to express the hidden, repressed, implicit, unsaid, unmanifested without fear of not falling into a trend, being unheard, etc. The final format of the work is photographs and videos, documenting images and/or processes, allowing for a variety of post-processing, outside the pressure of the environment or goals, and, as a result, open to a variety of interpretations and readings.

The main team of the project is photographer Vlada Krasilnikova and choreographer/filmmaker Lena Kholkina. We cooperate with make-up artists, clothing brands and actors/performers.


1 from offonroad on Vimeo.


2 from Elena Kholkina on Vimeo.


3 from Elena Kholkina on Vimeo.


4 from Elena Kholkina on Vimeo.