Fleet Ilya Part II by Ekaterina Bazhenova

Mixing moving image and sound and working with leather design pieces by Fleet Ilya, Ekaterina Bazhenova creates psychologically charged scenarios dealing with human desires. She raises subsequent dialogues with the self and reinterpretations of the female body by developing a distinctive style of filmmaking, using human interaction with an object to empathize and dramatize the most basic natural instincts, from submission to lust. Using leather restraints, harnesses and headwear by Fleet Ilya, Bazhenova creates transgressive narratives, rich in symbolic meaning; and emotionally profound video work where she increasingly blurs the cinematic and the performative. Just as Bazhenova produces art symbiotically to create her own singular and beguiling world, the ideas and images she conjures also propose a synesthetic interrelationship between the realms of the visible, the audible and the imaginary.

Fleet Ilya is a London based leather fashion and bondage label, headed by designers Resha and Ilya Fleet. The former, USSR-born with training in traditional saddle-making and Resha Sharma a Central Saint Martins Graphic Design graduate from London. Ilya Fleet began taking his traditional leather training and combining it with knowledge of three-dimensional design learned from his late father, a renowned Russian sculptor.

Ekaterina Bazhenova is a multimedia artist, currently lives and works in London. Born in Moscow, Russia, she received her MFA degree from Chelsea College of Art and Design in 2010.

Directed by Ekaterina Bazhenova

Leather accessories by Fleet Ilya

Audio: edited dialogue from Videodrome (1983) by David Cronenberg

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