Author: Sarah Johnson

By Sarah Johnson

In a contemporary art landscape frequently defined by digital immediacy and conceptual irony, the work of multidisciplinary artist Ulviyya Seyidova—who works under the moniker Assaya—operates on an entirely different frequency. Her canvases are not merely surfaces for aesthetic projection; they are rigorous, almost clinical laboratories of the unseen. Through her practice, Assaya investigates the imperceptible forces that govern both the universe and the human body, translating abstract scientific principles into haunting, visceral portraiture. Her art demands attention not through volume, but through an intense, gravitational pull, offering a profound mediation on the nature of existence, perception, and the liminal spaces between them.

The trajectory of Assaya’s artistic development is as unconventional as her methodology. Possessing a formidable intellect and a background in economics, she later formalised her artistic training at the prestigious Rome University of Fine Arts (RUFA). This intersection of disciplines—the analytical precision required of an economist and the expressive freedom of a fine artist—forms the bedrock of her unique visual language. She does not merely paint; she visualises complex systems. Concepts such as anomalous diffusion, stochastic processes, and quantum entanglement are not merely theoretical abstractions to her; they are the literal blueprints of her compositions. Within the broader context of Art, Assaya’s work stands as a vital bridge between rigorous empirical science and profound spiritual inquiry, rendering the microscopic architecture of the universe visible to the naked eye.

A Crucible of Survival

To engage with Assaya’s oeuvre without acknowledging the physical reality from which it emerges would be a profound oversight. Her artistic vision is inextricably linked to her diagnosis and ongoing battle with stage 4 cancer. However, to reduce her work to mere biographical trauma or a therapeutic exercise is to misunderstand its fundamental nature. For Assaya, survival is not the subject of her paintings; rather, it is the atomic structure that dictates their form and intensity. Her confrontation with mortality did not diminish her output; it radicalised her perception, stripping away the superfluous and distilling her focus to the essential rhythms of existence.

Facing a truncated timeline, the act of painting transformed from a vocational pursuit into an urgent, existential necessity. The physical toll of her illness necessitated a shift in how she engaged with time and materials. As Assaya herself has articulated, “When time fractures, you paint not in hours, but in breaths.” This profound statement encapsulates the urgency embedded in every brushstroke. When she enters the studio, she enters a flow state, a deeply meditative process where the boundaries between the artist and the canvas dissolve. Her works feel both ancient and immediate, excavated from a timeless stratum yet pulsating with the raw energy of the present moment. In a world characterised by distraction, her sincerity is radical, asking the viewer to confront the fragility of the body and the enduring resonance of the human spirit.

The Mechanics of Fluctuation

The conceptual weight of Assaya’s art is matched by the sheer technical rigour of her execution. Rejecting the shortcuts offered by digital manipulation or mass-produced materials, she has developed a highly idiosyncratic method of pointillism that borders on the obsessive. At the core of this technique are the tools themselves: Assaya employs handmade horsehair brushes of her own design, allowing her a level of granular control that commercial brushes cannot provide. The labour-intensive nature of this approach cannot be overstated. Creating her tools from scratch implies a rejection of the industrialised art supply chain, rooting her practice in an almost primal relationship with her materials. By meticulously assembling horsehair into fine-tipped implements, Assaya asserts total authorship over every aspect of her creation.

This meticulous application of acrylic and oil operates as a series of quantum events. Each stippled mark is simultaneously precise and indeterminate, building up layers of pigment that thrum with latent, kinetic energy. The resulting textures do not merely represent subatomic turbulence; they mimic its very behaviour. The wave-particle duality—the concept in quantum mechanics that every particle or quantum entity may be described as either a particle or a wave—becomes the visual syntax of her canvases. “I paint not the static,” she explains, “but the tremor beneath.”

Through this labour-intensive process, gradients map both celestial bodies and cellular structures, collapsing macroeconomic scale and microscopic detail into a unified visual field. It is a technique that mirrors the unpredictability of quantum fields, requiring a sustained, meditative discipline. The viewer is compelled to lean in, to inspect the fractal heartbeat of the canvas, only to realise that the closer one looks, the more the image seems to shift and vibrate.

Spectral Portraiture and the Void

Nowhere is this dynamic more evident than in Assaya’s acclaimed series of portraits, including Fluctuation, Open Your Eyes, and Fractured Wholeness. These bodies of work represent the apotheosis of her technique, distilling chaos into an eerie, meditative order. The paintings are dominated by spectral faces—disembodied, interconnected, and emerging from deep, abyssal black backgrounds rendered in otherworldly shades of luminous blue.

These apparitions occupy a liminal space. They are neither fully human nor entirely ethereal; they evoke the fragile territory between memory and oblivion, presence and absence. The subjects frequently feature closed eyes or turbulent, ambiguous expressions, suggesting an internal gaze turned toward the subconscious or the infinite. Critics have rightfully drawn comparisons between her haunting, visionary aesthetic and the unsettling intensity of Hieronymus Bosch, while her profound engagement with light, space, and minimalism echoes the luminous voids of James Turrell or the transcendental grids of Agnes Martin. Yet, Assaya’s voice remains entirely distinct. Where Martin sought serenity through rigid geometric order, Assaya finds a vibrating, kinetic dynamism within compression and shadows.

This thematic preoccupation with the void is not a nihilistic statement; rather, it is an exploration of potentiality. In quantum physics, a vacuum is never truly empty; it is a seething landscape of virtual particles popping in and out of existence. Assaya’s black backgrounds function similarly—they are fertile grounds from which consciousness emerges and into which it eventually recedes. The repetition of faces across these series suggests a continuum—a ghostly palimpsest where past, present, and future coalesce into a single moment. The blurred contours of her figures dissolve into the void, fiercely resisting rigid definition. They appear to be shifting between states of being, much like particles in a quantum state before observation forces them into a fixed reality. The very term “fluctuation”—a physicist’s metric for systemic deviation and variance—becomes a profound metaphor for human resilience and the constant, vibrating energy of life.

Institutional Recognition and the Quantum Age

The art world has increasingly recognised the unique potency of Assaya’s vision, acknowledging her ability to synthesise profound scientific inquiry with masterful execution. Her work has transcended localised acclaim to achieve significant international recognition. She has been a featured artist in major global exhibitions, including the London Art Biennale and the Woman’s Essence Show, where her spectral portraits have commanded the attention of critics and collectors alike.

Furthermore, Assaya was awarded the Second Place Winner at the highly competitive Women in Art Biennale Art Prize, a testament to her standing among contemporary female artists pushing the boundaries of their respective mediums. Her inclusion on the longlist for the prestigious Aesthetica Art Prize further underscores the critical consensus surrounding her practice. This growing institutional validation highlights a broader shift in contemporary Culture, wherein audiences and institutions are increasingly seeking art that bypasses superficial provocation in favour of deep, substantive inquiries into the nature of reality and the human condition.

Interwoven Horizons and the Relational Aesthetic

To stand before an Assaya canvas is to participate in an active, relational dynamic. Her paintings refuse passive consumption; they are not static images to be quickly categorised and scrolled past. This is perhaps best exemplified in her seminal piece, Interwoven. When viewing this work, the room itself seems to breathe in tandem with the canvas. The faces within hover in a trance-like state, demanding that the viewer adjust their own physical and psychological positioning to fully grasp the image.

This interaction mirrors the concept of quantum entanglement, where the state of one entity cannot be described independently of the state of the other. The observer and the observed are locked in a mutual exchange of energy. As the ambient light in the room shifts, or as the viewer moves their head, the colours oscillate between the ethereal and the visceral—blues that recall both the cold depths of the ocean and the bioluminescence of deep-sea life. The painting does not merely represent energy; it becomes an active conduit for it.

The Alchemy of Transformation

Ultimately, Ulviyya Seyidova’s legacy will not be defined solely by the narrative of her illness, but by her radical reimagining of what art can achieve in an era of distraction. She unveils the hidden architectures of existence, making tangible the invisible forces that bind stars to soil, and breath to the bloodstream. Her canvases are testaments to the quiet ferocity of the human spirit, offering a sanctuary of stillness where beauty and rigorous intellect are inextricably entwined.

In this profound alchemy of transformation, trauma is neither erased nor exploited; it is transmuted into light. Her work whispers a vital truth: there is an unimaginable grandeur in the unseen, and an enduring resilience in the simple, profound act of fluctuation. She paints not for posterity, but to reclaim the absolute present—brushstroke by meticulous brushstroke—from the jaws of oblivion.

By Sarah Johnson

The traditional paradigm of the civic art museum—a hushed, reverential repository where visitors absorb the achievements of the past in polite silence—has long been obsolete. Today, the most vital cultural institutions operate not as mausoleums, but as civic squares. They are arenas for contestation, reflection, and active conversation. Nowhere is this shift more practically executed than at the Manchester Art Gallery on Mosley Street. Here, the institution’s civic duty extends beyond the preservation of its collections into the realm of communal inquiry, facilitated through its long-running Philosophy Café.

Operating at the intersection of aesthetic experience and public philosophy, the Philosophy Café is an exercise in quiet radicalism. It asks a fundamentally democratic question: what happens when we use historical and contemporary visual arts not merely as objects of study, but as provocations for examining our own ethics, biases, and mortality? In an era characterised by digital echo chambers and the rapid polarisation of public discourse, physical spaces that foster structured, nuanced dialogue are increasingly rare. Manchester Art Gallery has successfully cultivated such an environment, demonstrating that the gallery floor can function as a modern agora.

The Architecture of Public Dialogue

The mechanics of the Philosophy Café are deliberately unpretentious. Convening on the third Tuesday of every month from 10:15 am to 12:15 pm, the sessions are free to attend and require no prior booking. This low barrier to entry is essential to the programme’s egalitarian ethos. There is no prerequisite for art historical knowledge or formal philosophical training. The only mandate is a willingness to listen and an openness to respectful disagreement.

A standard session begins in the gallery’s café. Over coffee, attendees gather in small groups to initiate discussion around a specific, often formidable theme. This initial, informal setting dismantles the intimidation that frequently accompanies institutional art spaces. Following this grounding conversation, the cohort is guided into the exhibition halls to confront specific artworks chosen to anchor the theme.

This process is emphatically not an art history lecture. The facilitators—a dedicated team of volunteers easily identifiable by their yellow lanyards—do not disseminate facts about brushstrokes, provenance, or the artist’s biography unless it directly serves the philosophical inquiry. Instead, they employ Socratic questioning, using the artwork as a focal point to tease out interpretations, ethical dilemmas, and personal reflections. The artwork becomes a third interlocutor in the conversation, offering visual evidence that complicates the human experience.

The Lineage of Public Philosophy

The Philosophy Café does not exist in a vacuum; it is part of a broader, grassroots movement to reclaim philosophy from the academy. Rooted in initiatives like Philosophy in Pubs (PiPs) and Philosophy for Communities (P4C), the practice is built on the premise that philosophy is a fundamental human activity, not an exclusive academic discipline. Historically, philosophical discourse occurred in public squares, coffee houses, and salons—spaces defined by the mingling of different social classes and lived experiences.

By embedding this practice within an art gallery, Manchester Art Gallery adds a crucial visual dimension to the philosophical method. The gallery setting provides a distinct advantage over the pub or the community hall. Visual art demands observation and interpretation. It bypasses the purely linguistic traps that often derail philosophical arguments, offering a tangible focal point. When participants disagree over a concept like ‘mercy,’ they can point to the specific brushstrokes, character expressions, and compositional choices in a painting to substantiate their arguments. This grounding in the physical object keeps the conversation rooted in shared observation rather than abstract hostility.

The history of Manchester Art Gallery itself aligns perfectly with this mission. Founded in 1823 as the Royal Manchester Institution, it was established by merchants who believed that the burgeoning industrial city needed an educational and cultural core. Its evolution from a society for the wealthy to a genuinely public institution reflects the democratisation of art access. The Philosophy Café represents the next logical step in this evolution: from granting the public access to viewing art, to granting them the authority to interrogate its meaning.

Confronting Mortality: The Aesthetics of the End

To understand the efficacy of this model, one must observe how it tackles subjects that wider society habitually avoids. A notable recent session focused on the profound and highly sensitive topic of death, specifically navigating the complex ethics surrounding assisted dying and end-of-life autonomy. In contemporary British society, death remains heavily sanitised, frequently outsourced to medical institutions and hidden behind closed doors. Bringing this subject into the brightly lit galleries of a major public museum is an act of intellectual courage.

During this session, the group was directed to James Archer’s La Mort d’Arthur (1860). Archer’s vivid, evocative canvas depicts the mythical King Arthur in his final moments, surrounded by the Lady of the Lake and three queens, preparing for his departure to Avalon. The painting is deeply entrenched in the Victorian romanticisation of the ‘good death’ (the ars moriendi)—a dignified, peaceful passing in the presence of loved ones and spiritual attendants. For the participants of the Philosophy Café, Archer’s work served as a stark contrast to the modern, often clinical realities of dying. The discussion moved seamlessly from the painted mythology of mercy and noble endings to the visceral, contemporary debate over whether mercy can—or should—be legislated in hospitals and hospices.

The conversation then pivoted to a very different aesthetic experience: John Pettie’s Duke of Monmouth’s Interview with James II (1882). Unlike the ethereal calm of Archer’s work, Pettie captures a moment of raw, desperate negotiation. The painting illustrates the Duke of Monmouth pleading for his life before his uncle, King James II, following the failed rebellion of 1685. The stark composition, heavily focused on the power dynamic between the condemned man and the absolute monarch, prompted participants to examine the nature of authority over human life. Who, ultimately, has the right to decide when a life ends? Is it the state, the medical establishment, a divine figure, or the individual? By filtering these heavy, abstract ethical questions through Pettie’s historical dramatisation, the participants articulated complex moral positions with remarkable clarity and candour.

The Imperative of Community and the Role of Volunteers

The success of the Philosophy Café is inextricably linked to its human infrastructure. The volunteer team at Manchester Art Gallery forms the backbone of this initiative. Navigating a group of strangers through a discussion on euthanasia, punishment, or existential dread requires a highly specific skill set. The facilitators must ensure the dialogue remains focused and respectful without stifling dissenting opinions or dismissing deeply personal reflections.

The importance of this facilitation became acutely apparent during periods of global disruption. When physical gallery spaces were forced to close during the pandemic, the programme demonstrated its resilience by moving online. For many, these discussions constituted a vital lifeline. As one participant noted regarding the gallery’s outreach efforts at the time, “This is simple, easy, and enriching human communication. It’s priceless for me, especially at this difficult time of restriction.”

This sentiment underscores a critical function of the modern cultural institution: combating urban isolation. The volunteers themselves recognise the weight of this responsibility. Reflecting on the challenges of maintaining these civic connections, one volunteer remarked, “It has been an extremely difficult year – but it is such a privilege to be part of the Gallery’s ongoing mission to extend the reach of art throughout the city and beyond.” The Philosophy Café, therefore, operates as a mechanism for social cohesion just as much as an intellectual exercise.

Democratising Intellectual Discourse

Taking these conversations out of academic philosophy departments and placing them in public spaces democratises intellectual discourse. The programme proves that rigorous debate on complex ethical frameworks does not require exclusionary jargon or a university degree. It requires only a shared text—in this case, the visual text of a painting—and a commitment to mutual understanding.

This methodology challenges the passive consumption that often defines cultural tourism. When visitors are asked to articulate their thoughts on mortality while standing before a 19th-century oil painting, the artwork ceases to be a static artefact. It becomes a live document. It bridges the temporal gap between the artist’s historical context and the viewer’s present reality, forcing a confrontation with the visual evidence of human history.

As society grapples with increasingly complex ethical frontiers—from the nuances of assisted dying to the encroaching realities of automation—the need for communal spaces of reflection grows more acute. Manchester Art Gallery recognises that its walls hold more than pigment and canvas; they hold the catalysts for essential civic dialogue. By transforming the gallery floor into a forum for sensitive, sometimes difficult conversations, the institution ensures that art remains an active, vital force in contemporary culture. The Philosophy Café proves that the most profound questions of our existence are best answered not in isolation, but in the company of others, looking closely at the world we have made.

By Sarah Johnson

Paris-based sculptor Eva Jospin has spent over a decade redefining the boundaries of contemporary sculpture through an uncompromising dedication to a single, humble material: corrugated cardboard. Born in 1975 and a graduate of the prestigious École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Jospin has consistently eschewed the traditional sculptor’s mediums of bronze, marble, or steel. Instead, she turns to the discarded, the ephemeral, and the ubiquitous. By carving, layering, and assembling thousands of sheets of cardboard, she conjures monumental, immersive environments—predominantly dense, intricate forests and architectural follies that appear both ancient and surreal. Her practice sits at the intersection of environmental meditation, architectural intervention, and pure aesthetic wonder.

In a contemporary art landscape often dominated by digital media and conceptual abstraction, Jospin’s deeply tactile, labour-intensive approach demands physical presence. Her towering woodlands and grottoes do not merely occupy a gallery space; they transform it, challenging the viewer to step into a liminal realm where the boundary between the natural world and the human-made environment dissolves completely.

The Alchemy of the Mundane: Cardboard as Canvas

The decision to utilize cardboard is central to the philosophical weight of Jospin’s oeuvre. Cardboard is the ultimate emblem of modern consumerism—a transient packaging material designed to protect goods in transit before being discarded. In Jospin’s hands, however, this mundane byproduct of global commerce undergoes a radical alchemy. Through an exhaustive process of cutting, stripping, and stacking, she reveals the material’s hidden textures. The corrugated edges become the rough bark of a mature oak; the smooth surfaces mimic the sweeping curves of a forest floor or the structured rigidity of classical architecture.

This transformation is achieved without the use of paint or superficial colouring. Jospin relies entirely on the natural, earthy palette of the cardboard—a spectrum of ochres, browns, and muted golds. This monochrome aesthetic forces the viewer to focus entirely on the form, texture, and scale of the work. The forests she creates are not botanical replicas but psychological landscapes. They tap into the collective unconscious, evoking the primeval forests of European folklore and fairy tales—spaces of danger, transformation, and enchantment. The sheer density of her cardboard groves creates a sense of claustrophobia and awe, mirroring the complex, often overwhelming nature of the wilderness itself. It is a masterful subversion of material: the very substance used to package the modern world is repurposed to remind us of the ancient, untamed environments we have largely paved over.

A Subterranean Symphony: “Promenade(s) en Champagne” for Ruinart

Jospin’s ability to weave her intricate aesthetic into the fabric of established institutions and heritage brands is perhaps best exemplified by her selection as the 2023 guest artist for Ruinart’s prestigious “Carte Blanche” commission. Tasked with interpreting the legacy of the historic Champagne house, Jospin delivered “Promenade(s) en Champagne,” a sprawling, multi-faceted installation that drew profound inspiration from the region’s unique terroir.

Rather than focusing solely on the vineyards themselves, Jospin delved into the subterranean architecture of the Champagne production process—the crayères, or chalk cellars, where the wine matures in darkness. Her cardboard sculptures for this commission echoed the complex geological layers of the region, translating the porous, pale chalk into towering, layered cardboard reliefs. The installation functioned as a physical journey, mirroring the descent into the cellars and the slow, quiet alchemy of fermentation.

Beyond the monumental installations, Jospin’s collaboration with Ruinart extended to the creation of an exclusive, limited-edition wooden case for a Blanc de Blancs jeroboam. Held together by custom leather straps, the wooden exterior opens to reveal a miniature, meticulously crafted cardboard landscape cradling the bottle. This piece serves as a microcosm of her broader practice—a highly controlled, architectural exterior giving way to a wild, organic interior. The Ruinart commission cemented her status not merely as a sculptor, but as a creator of holistic, immersive environments that engage directly with the history and geography of their setting.

Haute Couture and the “Chambre de Soie”: The Dior Collaborations

The intricate, highly crafted nature of Jospin’s work has also found a natural resonance within the highest echelons of the fashion industry, leading to a sustained and highly fruitful creative dialogue with the House of Dior and its Artistic Director, Maria Grazia Chiuri. This collaboration represents a fascinating convergence of Design disciplines, where spatial sculpture meets the meticulous artistry of haute couture.

The zenith of this partnership occurred during the Dior Haute Couture Autumn-Winter 2021-2022 presentation. Jospin conceptualised and designed the “Chambre de Soie” (Silk Room), a breathtaking 40-metre-long immersive gallery that served as the backdrop for the collection. While her signature medium is cardboard, for this project, her intricate line drawings of lush, imaginary forests were translated into monumental hand-embroidered panels. This Herculean task was realised in collaboration with the Chanakya Atelier and the Chanakya School of Craft in Mumbai, bringing together French contemporary art and elite Indian craftsmanship.

Her relationship with Dior has continued to evolve. For the 10th anniversary of the celebrated Dior Lady Art project slated for 2025, Jospin was invited to reinterpret the iconic Lady Dior handbag. Applying her architectural and naturalistic sensibilities to the accessory, she incorporated delicate embroidery and sculptural elements, including a miniature balustrade, transforming the bag into a portable piece of textured poetry. Furthermore, her involvement extended to designing an exceptional limited-edition trunk for the Miss Dior fragrance, adorned with floral and arboreal motifs. These collaborations underscore Jospin’s versatility and her ability to translate her distinct visual vocabulary across vastly different scales and materials.

The Cour Carrée and Beyond: Monumentality in Public Spaces

While gallery exhibitions and luxury collaborations highlight her technical precision, Jospin’s monumental public installations demonstrate her capacity to alter our perception of historic urban spaces. A defining moment in her career was the 2016 installation “Panorama” within the Cour Carrée of the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Placing a contemporary artwork in the central courtyard of one of the world’s most storied museums is an intimidating prospect, yet Jospin’s “Panorama” commanded the space with quiet authority. The exterior of the installation presented a mirrored architectural pavilion, reflecting the classical stone facades of the Louvre and camouflaging the structure within its historic surroundings. However, stepping inside revealed a 360-degree, fully immersive cardboard forest. This stark juxtaposition—the rigid, rational geometry of the Louvre’s exterior against the wild, chaotic, and organic cardboard interior—created a profound sensory experience.

This approach to public art is characteristic of Jospin’s broader strategy. She frequently employs architectural elements—arches, grottos, and pavilions—as framing devices. These structures act as thresholds, guiding the viewer from the familiar urban environment into her fabricated wilderness. By situating her forests within grand architectural contexts, she highlights the tension between human civilization and the natural world, suggesting that beneath the veneer of our constructed cities lies an ancient, irrepressible wilderness waiting to reclaim its territory.

Ecology, Ephemerality, and the Absence of the Human Figure

A critical analysis of Eva Jospin’s work within the broader context of the Visual arts reveals a profound, albeit understated, ecological narrative. The most striking element of her vast landscapes is the absolute absence of the human figure. These are unpeopled worlds, ancient and indifferent to human existence. This deliberate omission forces viewers to confront their own scale and significance—or lack thereof—in the face of nature’s monumental complexity.

Furthermore, the tension between the subject matter (ancient, enduring forests) and the medium (fragile, biodegradable cardboard) cannot be ignored. Cardboard is inherently ephemeral; it is susceptible to moisture, fire, and the simple degradation of time. By constructing symbols of natural permanence from a material defined by its transience, Jospin prompts a meditation on the fragility of our own environment. The cardboard forests stand as a haunting premonition: a representation of a natural world that is increasingly vulnerable to human consumption and industrial expansion. Her work is not explicitly activist, but its quiet insistence on the vulnerability of both material and subject matter speaks volumes about the precarious state of the ecological balance.

The Enduring Legacy of Transience

Eva Jospin has achieved something remarkable in contemporary sculpture: she has forged an entirely unique visual language from the literal detritus of modern life. Her journey from the Parisian studios to the Cour Carrée of the Louvre, the historic cellars of Ruinart, and the runways of Dior is a testament to the universal resonance of her vision.

By demanding that we look closer at a material we have been conditioned to ignore, she recalibrates our perception of value, beauty, and permanence. Her cardboard realms are spaces of profound quietude and intense mystery, offering a necessary refuge from the relentless pace of the modern age. In the intricate layers of her forests, Jospin reminds us that enchantment is not a relic of the past, but something that can be meticulously constructed from the ground up, one sheet of cardboard at a time. Her legacy is one of transformative vision—proving that true artistry lies not in the nobility of the materials, but in the depth of the imagination that wields them.