Nastya
Rodionova
writer
poet
political journalist
visual artist
Nastya Rodionova (Anastassia Kourliandskaya) was born in 1986 in Moscow. Since 2022, she has been living and working in France. She studied prose at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute and worked as a journalist for several major Russian media outlets, specializing in political opposition, political prisoners, and social issues. Her poetry and prose have been published in literary journals and anthologies. Her novel To Kill Lenin, published in April 2021 by Jaromír Hladík Press, was longlisted for the Big Book Award and the Fiction35 Prize. She is the author of texts for a number of theatre and music projects, including the libretto for Dmitri Kourliandski’s opera Eurydice, which was performed in Italy and France in 2021–2022. In 2022, after the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she emigrated with her family to France, where she obtained political refugee status. In her new country, deprived of her primary instrument — the Russian language — she began developing the concept of performative literature, literature without language. Within this framework, Nastya Rodionova creates novel-installations, novel-performances, novel-exhibitions, working with the image before it becomes verbalized. In 2023, she taught a course in performative literature at the Bern University of the Arts (Switzerland). Her poetry has been translated into French, English, and Italian. She is a recipient of scholarships from the Porosus Foundation (2023), Campus France, and Kulturensemble Palermo (2024). Together with the Atelier of Artists in Exile, she is conducting the series of poetry readings “Words in Exile” at the Maison de la Poésie in Paris (2025), where she reads excerpts from her new novel My Grandfather Romain Gary.
Nastya Rodionova (Anastassia Kourliandskaya) est née en 1986 à Moscou. Depuis 2022, elle vit et travaille en France. Elle a étudié la prose à l’Institut de littérature Maxime-Gorki et a travaillé comme journaliste dans plusieurs grands médias russes, se spécialisant dans l’opposition politique, les prisonniers politiques et les questions sociales. Sa poésie et sa prose ont été publiées dans des revues littéraires et des recueils. Son roman Tuer Lénine, publié en avril 2021 par Jaromír Hladík Press, a figuré dans les long-lists des prix « Bolchaïa Kniga » et « Fiction35 ». Elle est l’autrice de textes pour divers projets théâtraux et musicaux, dont le livret de l’opéra Eurydice de Dmitri Kourliandski, présenté en Italie et en France en 2021–2022. En 2022, après le début de l’invasion à grande échelle de l’Ukraine par la Russie, elle a émigré avec sa famille en France, où elle a obtenu le statut de réfugiée politique. Dans son nouveau pays, privée de son principal instrument — la langue russe — elle a commencé à développer le concept de littérature performative, une littérature sans langue. Dans ce cadre, Nastya Rodionova crée des romans-installations, des romans-spectacles, des romans-expositions, travaillant avec l’image avant sa mise en mots. En 2023, elle a enseigné un cours de littérature performative à l’Université des Arts de Berne (Suisse). Sa poésie a été traduite en français, en anglais et en italien. Elle est boursière de la Fondation Porosus (2023), de Campus France et de Kulturensemble Palermo (2024). Avec l’Atelier des artistes en exil, elle mène la série de lectures poétiques « Mots en exil » à la Maison de la Poésie à Paris (2025), où elle lit des extraits de son nouveau roman Mon grand-père Romain Gary.
Настя Родионова (Анастасия Курляндская) родилась в 1986 году в Москве. С 2022 года живет и работает во Франции. Изучала прозу в Литературном институте имени Горького, работала журналистом в ряде крупных российских изданий, специализировалась на темах политической оппозиции, политических заключённых и социальных проблемах. Стихи и проза публиковались в литературных журналах и сборниках. Роман "Убить Ленина", опубликованный в апреле 2021 года издательством Jaromír Hladík press, вошел в лонг-листы премий "Большая книга" и "Fiction35". Автор текстов для ряда театральных и музыкальных проектов, включая либретто оперы Дмитрия Курляндского «Эвридика», показы которой состоялись в Италии и Франции в 2021-2022 годах. В 2022 году, после начала полномасштабной войны с Украиной, эмигрироала с семьей во Францию, где получила статус политического беженца. В новой стране, будучи лишенной своего главного инструмента – русского языка, она начала разрабатывать концепцию перформативной литературы, литературы без языка. В рамках концепции перформативной литературы Настя Родионова создает романы-инсталляции, романы-спектакли, романы-экспозиции и т. д., работая с образом до его словесного выражения. В 2023 году преподает курс перформативной литературы в Университете искусств Берна, Швейцария. Стихи переведены на французский, английский и итальянский языки. Стипендиат фонда Porosus (2023), Campus France и Kulturensemble Palermo (2024). Вместе с Ателье артистов в изгнании проводит серию поэтических чтений "Слова в изгнании" в Доме поэзии в Париже (2025), где читает отрывки из своего нового романа "Мой дедушка Ромен Гари".
2024
3D-printed object
First exposition - 04.2024, Atelier des artistes en exil, Paris
"Eve tree" is a part of the "Eve tree: Growing Eve" project, which is currently under development. This is a reflection on the Abrahamic myth of the woman (“made from Adam's rib”, “the cause of man's expulsion from Paradise”) – a mockery of this myth, which itself is a mockery of female nature. If the Hebrew text gives us a more complex picture of a woman’s existence, in which the word צלע is more often used in the meaning of “side” or “part,” then Christianity, which became the foundation of patriarchal European culture, insists on translating this word as “rib.”
roman-installation
Production :
atelier des artistes en exil
Dans le cadre de l’été culturel 2023
soutenu par la ministère de la Culture
Avec le soutien du Fonds de dotation Porosus et de la Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris
Cache-Cache:
ne quittez pas l'armoire
Installation performative pour deux cabinets et un public.
atelier des artistes en exil
Festival visions d'exil
Octobre 28, 2023 La Gaîté Lyrique, Paris
À l'intérieur de la baleine
roman-exposition
RE : location project. 2024,
Atelier d'Olga Kisseleva, Paris
Commissaires: Anastasia Kurlyandtseva, Olga Kisseleva. Curator-researcher: Sonia Kovaleva
« Inside the Whale » The Whale has sailed to Paris. The whale is dead. Long live the Whale! The exhibition holds of several layers of meaning, presented in different techniques. An installation made from a fishing net, a plaster whale, crab traps filled with artifacts, a series of x-ray photographs, two canvases interpreting the epitaphios, an x-ray icon. All these objects interpret the idea of immersion inside a person and its reflections. The installation is accompanied by a sound file that creates a special acoustic environment. « In August 2022, a beluga whale was discovered in the Seine, seventy kilometers away from Paris. Reports said that it was weak and refused to eat. It swam three thousand kilometers from the coast of Norway — and only seventy remained before Paris. What does 70 kilometers mean to a whale ? It measures distances by oceans and seas. On August 10, the news reported that the whale died. The whale is dead, long live the whale. Why did she swim towards us ? Perhaps to devour us, thereby fulfilling Jonah’s myth ? And the whale didn't die, we just now live inside the whale. This project offers an experience of rethinking the reality around us, returning from everyday life to the depths of the oceans, where life originated and in which it continues to exist. It is connected with my own refugee from Russia and moving to a new city. Any step outside is a step inside. The illusion of the other: where to think about this if not in Paris ? In this case, I am thinking about the illusion of another place, which is also located inside me, inside the whale, inside everyone. Paris, inside human X-rays, expresses this image for me. »
La Fourrure
performance
Villa Paradis. en Résidence à la Traverse, Marseille
24.02.2024
(photo - Ivan Lounguine)
À l’accouchement, il est recommandé d’être dans l’eau pour soulager la douleur. En février 2023, les mères des militaires russes décédés en Ukraine ont reçu des manteaux de fourrure. Est-ce que le manteau de fourrure apaisera la douleur de la perte d’un enfant ? Dans cette performance, Nastya Rodionova repose dans une baignoire avec un manteau de fourrure usé. L’eau, la fourrure et le corps féminin racontent une histoire de vie, de mort et de douleur. Dans la baignoire, elle lit des poèmes d’Anna Akhmatova et Marina Tsvetaeva, des poétesses russes du XXe siècle, dédiés à leurs fils, ainsi que des lettres et des appels au leadership soviétique. Des haut-parleurs connectés à la baignoire diffusent des enregistrements documentaires de conversations entre des soldats russes combattant en Ukraine et leurs mères. Certains de ces enregistrements montrent des mères et des épouses ivres approuvant la violence et le meurtre.
Kill Lenin
roman (en russe)
2021
"Kill Lenin" is a multi-layered novel whose main character, Sveta Maeva, grew up in an Orthodox environment. For a little girl, demons, "Jews" and eschatological prophecies are as familiar and commonplace as a Teddy bear and walks in the Park. Now Sveta works in the editorial office of a daily newspaper, where the tradition of heavy drinking is still preserved, and low-grade yellow materials and sharp political articles are side by side on the same page. Nationalists, thieves in law, opposition rallies and writers' gatherings in the present are interspersed with storylines from the past. There, on the stairs of the Moscow state University, her parents meet, the pages of the novel describe: the Mordovian zone for political prisoners, the everyday life of the Soviet humanitarian Institute, life 101 km after the release from the camp, the collapse of the family and the remarriage of the mother, who played a key role in the fate of the heroine. The end of the world becomes a special circumstance of the novel. Sveta is waiting for it as a child, but in the present it suddenly appears as an information guide, because it should happen in 2012 according to the Mayan calendar and the media are happy to savor this topic. The father told the little heroine about the speed of light: "If the sun goes out, we won't know for eight minutes." Or four hundred and eighty seconds. Therefore, in difficult moments, she closes her eyes and starts counting. "It doesn't go out," Sveta states each time, either with relief or with sadness. Lenin lies in the Mausoleum, but continues to live as an archetype, an image, a demon, a myth about himself, a nostalgia for the past, a symbol of historical tragedy. It's time to kill him. This is decided by one of the secondary heroines. But her act becomes only an episode, lost in the dense interweaving of times and events. The internal dialogue with the deceased father, which continues throughout the novel, allows Sveta to keep a distance from her past and present. At the end of the novel, this dialogue breaks the fabric of time. And there are still more questions than answers: is Lenin alive? was there a father? has the sun gone out?
longlisted:
Songs by Nastya
Musique de Dmitri Kourliandski
texte de Nastia Rodionova
Premiere: Syntax ensemble
Milano musica 2023
Eurydice, une expérience du noir
Opéra de Dmitri Kourliandski
texte de Nastia Rodionova
mise en scène Antoine Gindt
avec : Jeanne Crousaud (Eurydice), Dominique Mercy (Orphée), Bianca Chillemi (piano)
Réalisation : Julien Ravoux
© T&M, 2022