Solitude is fine but you need someone to tell that solitude is fine.
– Honoré de Balzac
I met Jenya Skubina @jenny_cycles during an online art course in the winter of 2021. Some time later, I came across her maps of Amsterdam, New York, and Moscow.
After a year of pandemic and lockdown, those maps brought back memories — I had visited Moscow many times, I’d long dreamed of seeing Amsterdam, and I kept vivid memories of New York: people walking their dogs, the energy of the streets, my friends I missed. With Jenya’s maps, I found myself diving into memories and imagination at once.
The pandemic tore us away from our usual rhythm of life — from the ease of movement and direct connection with others.
Jenya’s maps, full of motion, characters, and urban life, felt like a parallel universe — one that kept living while the real world froze.
For this collaboration, I selected one element from each of her maps and transformed it into an independent glass object. Removed from its original context, each figure or symbol became a fragment — a self-contained world, suspended between solitude and connection.
The project consists of three art objects that combine stained glass in the classic Tiffany technique with modern plexiglass.
Their blogs opened to me the everyday culture of the Netherlands — from how children learn to how adults build community. I was fascinated by their approach to life and education. Since then, I’ve dreamed of visiting Amsterdam and living there for a while.
When I saw that little figure on the map, I immediately knew — it had to be the girl with the dog.
During my last visit to New York in 2019, I stayed near Prospect Park in Brooklyn and spent hours watching people walking their dogs — some walking a dozen at once! The city felt alive through that joy, through the bond between humans and animals. That memory stayed with me, and it’s what this work holds.
