Artists

Ilya Sprindzhuk

Press release

Cross Talk explores the connection between sacred symbols and childhood toys – two systems through which a person learns to structure reality from an early age. Toys become the first 'sacred' objects: a child assigns them protective powers, builds rituals around them, and through play creates a 'potential space' (as described by Donald Winnicott), a zone between reality and fantasy where they feel safe. For adults, this function can be taken over by religious symbols, more complex and collective structures that define the boundaries of morality and fear. Rituals become a way to impose order on social life, just as a child controls the imaginary world through play. The project shows how personal memories of childhood toys intertwine with collective perceptions of sacred forms, and how both systems help cope with the chaos around us. This project is not about the symbols themselves, but about our inner need for them. As part of the project, Sprindzhuk conducted interviews in which he asked people about their childhood religious experiences and invited them to show a toy from that time. Each painting is based on the received responses and stories. By selecting and reinterpreting symbols recurring in these interviews, the artist creates a dialogue between memory and image. Ilya Sprindzhuk (b. 1994 in Minsk, Belarus) Multidisciplinary artist in political exile in Warsaw since 2021. His artistic practice includes painting, installation, sculpture, actionism, and focuses on phenomena of power, boundaries, and the politics of memory. His works often operate at a large scale, interact directly with space, and incorporate processes of self-decay and transformation. Growing up in Belarus, he witnessed how history and cultural heritage were instrumentalised by the state and transformed into tools of ideological control. This experience has become central to his artistic research, which examines how local narratives are shaped and manipulated within broader global political processes. Through material-based and site-specific practices, his work investigates how memory becomes a field of power and resistance. Sprindzhuk graduated from the State Secondary School of Fine Arts in Minsk, Belarus. He studied at the Faculty of Furniture Design in the Belarusian State Academy of Arts. In 2021, due to political repressions and persecution by the Belarusian authorities, he was forced to leave the country and emigrate to Poland. He graduated from the Faculty of Media Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2024). His practice also includes designing exhibitions and cultural events. Sprindzhuk has participated in many artist residencies, discussions, and interventionist projects, i.e. Knock-knock, Poland; Za'opatrzenie (Provision), Poland; Monuments of Oblivion, Poland, Germany, Slovakia, as well as grup shows in Poland and abroad, i.e. Made in Trenčin, Slovakia (2026), Crash Club, Warsaw Gallery Weekend, Poland (2024), Art-Minsk, Minsk, Belarus (2020).