Ilja Jakovlev

There are several prominent priority themes in my work. One of them is folklore and its place in the modern world. I am interested in the aspect of folk art as the connection between generations and different ways of transmitting and expressing culture. I study folklore from different angles, morphologically: studying stories and oral tales of peoples, culturally-historically: comparing folklore with the thinking of our ancestors and their understanding of the world around us, which is different from ours. I wonder how folklore appears, how to continue this tradition in modern realities, in a world that is devoid of subtle sensations, what things we can take away from folklore that, after generations, do not lose their relevance.
Another broad topic that I study in my work is the psychology of space and the emotional relationship between man and architecture. Recently, I have delved into the study of totalitarian forms of architecture in order to understand how the materials, contours and mass of buildings influenced the thinking of the population and reinforced the daily propaganda of the regime on citizens. I am also interested in the relationship between religion, faith and architecture, where the church as an object is an integral part of the ritual of worship (in Christianity). I am studying the religious aspect, trying to understand the essence of faith and atheism based on my memories from childhood. This leads to the final theme of my creative endeavors - collective memory. The search for one’s identity, the memory of cities about the events and people who once happened and lived in them. I'm interested in the relationship between a person's memory and a place and its context, which either changes over time or disappears altogether.