Cyprus Amber Incubation Spa~ce is an unusual, phantasmagoric treatment place resembling a spa salon.

CYPRUS AMBER incubation SPA~ce
Artists: Ilina Chervonnaya, Katerina Neofytidou, Marcus Ernst Papageorgiou
Curated by: Maria Stepkina
October 13 - 27.,  2019
Selim Projects, Helsinki

The world has less time left. Travel now!
Let’s fly away! A sweet escape!
Travel slogans
I dreamed that everything was just an acceptable error and vibration of the universe. There was no density of sensations on which we could rely every moment. And I felt as a kind of floundering beam in timelessness, which just got sick and thus disembosomed all the environment. I was in a kind of universal lazaret for correction and recovery.
From a friend’s WhatsApp message
Little fly
Thy summer’s play
My thoughtless hand
Has brush’d away
Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me
William Blake The Fly (1794)

Over the past decades the world has experienced a wellness industry boom. An increasing number of travelers seek to relieve stress and recover from the after-effects of modern life. Spa treatments have become an omnipresent service and a touristic attraction. In the Nordic countries especially, spa days may well compensate for the small number of days with favorable weather conditions. Health, beauty and youth are the prominent luxury offerings in the scarce market for ecological purity.
But what is the meaning of such a wellness boom? How does it relate to ecological anxiety? Is it an attempt to doze off, to wash one’s hands and minds off the traumatic reality? Is it a complacent effort to calm down, to soothe our irritated, annoyed and nervous bodies? Even if an extreme and unpredictable climate is looming ahead there still exists a shared fantasy about a gentle, mild-tempered and affectionate chimerical Nature (which can be enclosed in certain corners, comfort zones, cozy spa studios) serving the chosen ones whose bodies are spinning in the foamy whirlpool of self-contained escapism.
It is a space where mutation and transformation become possible by the agency of ‘therapeutic’ tools/elements/devices and with the help of absurd healing procedures based on the properties of Cyprus Amber. While amber in the traditional sense is a fossilized derivative of extinct trees, Cyprus Amber is a real yet inaccessible substance of the modern age. A weird, fantastic and mystical derivative of plastic, ultraviolet light, increased salinity, extreme temperature fluctuations, electrostatic stress, ionizing radiation and more. Cyprus Amber together with its associates are agents of influence. They bewitch highly mobile individuals, penetrate into consumer goods, disperse themselves in the air, dust and water.
You are welcome to meet the Cyprus Amber, its ancestor the Umbrella Pine and the guiding Millipede and indulge your senses in Cyprus Amber Healing Sessions with an unpredictable outcome.

Cyprus Amber Incubation Spa~ce has been created by:

Ilina Chervonnaya, artist who lives and works in Russia and Cyprus. The subject of her artistic interest is the phenomenon of tourism as a self-perpetuating value of modernity and its syndromes and effects. In her work she reflects upon tourist sights as tricky places/things which can transform reality through co-mutation.
https://www.ilinachervonnaya.com

Katerina Neofytidou, interdisciplinary artist based in Nicosia, Cyprus. Her focus is the exploration of the mutual Spaces of Transformation between human and environment. The observation of the interactions of universal forces and sociopolitical transformations fuels her research.
https://katerinaneofytidou.com

Maria Stepkina, curator based in Helsinki. Her main focus of interest is in co-creation, co-thinking and possible modes of togetherness and collectivity

Music by:
Marcus Ernst Papageorgiou, composer, drummer and sound engineer based in Nicosia, Cyprus. Often characterised by lack of obvious repetition, his work blends complex electronic beats and constantly evolving structures, revealing an intricate relationship between human and machine.
https://soundcloud.com/rapid-cycling