Misread Signs is an exhibition of new work and performance by Yuliya Lanina. Exploring the effects of trauma on the human psyche, the exhibition begins with her signature paintings of collaged, malformed characters that later come to life in a three-channel, immersive animation. The show will culminate with 3 days of a multimedia performance by Lanina featuring animatronic sculptures, projected animation, music, and movement.

Donned as one of her feathered creatures with antlers, Lanina performs within the projected animations, illuminated solely by her anthropomorphic sculptures — skeletal birds with human baby heads and phosphorescent eyes. The animation fills a quarter of the gallery, creating a seamless immersive story.

In the course of the performance, we see the artist desperate, but unable to tell us something. Based on her personal experience of surviving brutal rape and becoming mute for five days afterward, this piece examines the inability for someone who just went through a traumatic experience to express or even connect with how they feel.

Her collaborator, composer José Martinez, uses recordings of Lanina’s voice as his audio material. He renders her heartfelt and revealing text beyond recognition, while transforming her voice to the extreme in order to convey the urgency of expression.

Lanina’s images are inspired by the Surrealist and Dada approach, with the subconscious taking the lead, and leaving analytical thinking behind, and by embracing the nonsensical and surprising. By exploring the life of fantastic and bizarre creatures, the artist is able to reach places unavailable to her rational self, inviting the audience to do the same. In this piece, most of the characters on the screen are masked. At first, they are aloof, unmoved by Lanina’s pleas; Later, they urge her to, “let go of the past,” a sentiment re-addressed by Lanina to the audience.

The piece transcends the particulars of the artist’s painful experience into a universal story of survival and redemption.