De Nijverheid / De Tunnel – All I had I gave – Nastia Cistakova

This exhibition unfolds a visual exploration of satire as a means to reimagine sexuality, femininity, power, and identity. The works navigate between absurdity and intimacy, personal memories and collective visual culture. Everyday symbols, memes, and fragments of daily life are arranged, distorted, and retold as an archive of feelings, misunderstandings, and desires.

Here, humor functions not as an escape, but as a strategy: a way to disrupt dominant narratives and open up space for alternative perspectives. Through paintings, illustrations, prints, and objects, a layered installation emerges in which the visual language of repetition, tactility, and reproduction plays a key role.

Nastia Cistakova

Nastia’s artistic practice is rooted in social commentary on contemporary life. Using humor, satire, and absurdity, she investigates how social norms, power structures, and everyday symbols shape our view of the world. Satire operates not merely as a comedic device, but as a critical and speculative method: a way to expose stereotypes, question dominant narratives, and create room for alternative perspectives.

Within this practice, themes of representation, sexuality, labor, connection, and identity converge. Social commentary is thus not only a subject, but a methodology—a way of observing, dissecting, and reimagining everyday life.

Developed through an interdisciplinary and process-driven approach, her work moves between experimental illustration and fine art. Drawing serves both as a research tool and a point of departure: a way to translate complex ideas into Nastia’s distinct visual language.