07/2026
Shapeshifters
Домакиня, Водоноска, Булка /Domakinia, Vodonoska, Bulka/
Homemaker, Carrier of water, Bride
Shapeshifters is an installation of hand-knitted sculptures of femininity. You are invited to get closer to the openings of the sculptures where the scent brings you back to a life centred around the production of tobacco. They act as a testament to the underpaid and dangerous work of women at tobacco factories in Bulgaria at the beginning of the 20th century.
Each sculpture carries the names of traditionally female domestic roles, contrasting them with the reality of the ever-changing faces of womanhood and femininity. The project aims to keep the memory of the unrecognised labour of women and evoke empathy through a sensory experience of smell and observation. Through a practice of craft, inspired by a technique of knitting domestic vessels with corn leaves, Kalina seeks to decontextualise tobacco as a consumable good and reframe it as a material of creation instead of destruction and oppression