When my art project was censored by the school as containing a hint of violence, I decided to take it not as a problem but as an opportunity to create a new work.
I thought that in my work I really focus on exploring violence and maybe school is not the best place to explore this societal issue. So I decided to challenge myself and everybody.
And I had the idea to do something completely opposite of that - to do the kindest, kindest, most family and child-friendly project ever.
I decided to create the kindest characters possible, who would not cause fear and aggression in anyone, but instead, only smiles, sympathy and humour. I thought it would be a kind irony about themselves and an ironic response to the ban. I wanted my characters to be kind and simple-minded, like cartoon characters for three-year-olds.
And the action plots, too, I wanted to make exclusively childish and puppet-like - to feed them, put them to bed to sleep, play with them, entertain them, watch cartoons with them, read them books and love and pamper them in every possible way.
But my simple idea immediately began to take on new meanings and evolve.
I began to draw funny faces, trying to make them a little more individual, endowing them with different facial features.
And suddenly it seemed to me that the moustachioed character was from Hungary, and the freckled, good-looking one was Polish. And I immediately felt the usual feeling of historical guilt - I am Russian, my ancestors lived in the Soviet Union, which caused so much humiliation and evil to these countries and people.
And then I thought that my childhood plans to put to bed and give pleasure probably had a deeper meaning. In response to the sense of historical guilt and my genetic involvement in that history, I subconsciously want to do something good for them, to restore justice and make amends.
That is what I am trying to do.
By the way, the famous Rubik's cube was invented by the Hungarian inventor Ernő Rubik in 1974.