She stood naked, her body column-like, in Modigliani

2026, sound frieze

Language: Russian

In this work, we transform the architectural frieze into a sonic form. The sonic frieze functions like a bas‑relief: its structure is static, yet movement constantly circulates within it. Whispering creates the sensation of a continuous band along which the listener travels, just as the eye moves along a frieze.

The piece unfolds as a vertical chant built around the Russian root sto‑, a root that means “to stand,” but also “to endure,” “to remain,” “to resist,” “to rise,” “to be held upright.” It is a linguistic column, and from it grows a procession of images — a standing nude in Modigliani, the standing sun over Ithaca, the standing Atlantes of the Hermitage, the standing chorus of Sophocles, the standing stones of Easter Island, the standing Terracotta Army, the standing wave in the Fabry–Pérot resonator. Into this vertical world history litany are woven also the moments of Russian memory, like February standing still in Pasternak — a month held upright by frost and breath, a season that refuses to move.

These “standings” accumulate into a frieze of endurance — a vertical architecture of what remains.

authors: Yana Osman, Anton Khamchishkin