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    From the series "The Three of Us" | DER GREIF
    From the series "The Three of Us"
    From the series "The Three of Us" | DER GREIF
    From the series "The Three of Us"
    From the series "The Three of Us" | DER GREIF
    From the series "The Three of Us"
    From the series "The Three of Us" | DER GREIF
    From the series "The Three of Us"
    From the series "The Three of Us" | DER GREIF
    From the series "The Three of Us"
    From the series "The Three of Us" | DER GREIF
    From the series "The Three of Us"
    From the series "The Three of Us" | DER GREIF
    From the series "The Three of Us"
    From the series "The Three of Us" | DER GREIF
    From the series "The Three of Us"
    From the series "The Three of Us" | DER GREIF
    From the series "The Three of Us"
    From the series "The Three of Us" | DER GREIF
    From the series "The Three of Us"
    From the series "The Three of Us" | DER GREIF
    From the series "The Three of Us"
    From the series "The Three of Us" | DER GREIF
    From the series "The Three of Us"
    From the series "The Three of Us" | DER GREIF
    From the series "The Three of Us"
    From the series "The Three of Us" | DER GREIF
    From the series "The Three of Us"
    From the series "The Three of Us" | DER GREIF
    From the series "The Three of Us"
    From the series "The Three of Us" | DER GREIF
    From the series "The Three of Us"
    From the series "The Three of Us" | DER GREIF
    From the series "The Three of Us"
    From the series "The Three of Us" | DER GREIF
    From the series "The Three of Us"
    From the series "The Three of Us" | DER GREIF
    From the series "The Three of Us"
    From the series "The Three of Us" | DER GREIF
    From the series "The Three of Us"
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    The Three of Us

    Artist Feature of Sveta Kaverina

    “The Three of Us” grows out of a real and often overlooked facet of Soviet history: the conviction that death itself could be overcome. After the 1917 Revolution, some Bolsheviks envisioned not only a new society but a new humanity: one liberated from illness, aging, and even mortality. Scientific writings speculated seriously about resurrecting the dead and engineering eternal life, and there is evidence that the preservation of Vladimir Lenin’s body was fueled by these ambitions.

    From this historical foundation, the project constructs a mockumentary narrative: a secret Soviet experiment intended to achieve immortality. It does not result in a reborn Lenin; instead, it produces three cloned girls. Unclaimed and unsuitable for propaganda, they carry no symbolic power. When the USSR collapses, the program is dissolved, leaving the clones suspended between past and future, forced to exist in a world they were never meant to inherit.

    The three girls function simultaneously as fictional characters and as metaphors. Their parallel lives reflect fractured identities shaped by political rupture. Their gestures, routines, and uncertain place in the world echo the lingering aftershocks of systems that collapse but never fully disappear. The project is informed by the artist’s own biography: born in the USSR, growing up through its disintegration, and later repeatedly remaking herself through successive migrations. Each move demanded a different version of the self, translated and reassembled from fragments.

    “The Three of Us” is ultimately about survival after collapse and the quiet persistence of unresolved histories. It examines how political ideologies imprint themselves on individual lives and the world at large, and how their echoes continue to shape inner worlds long after the systems themselves have vanished.

    Sveta Kaverina is part of Issue 18 by Guest Editor Hank Willis Thomas.

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    Sveta Kaverina

    Sveta Kaverina (b. 1977, former USSR) is a visual artist working with photography, video, and text. With a background in cultural studies and a PhD in philosophy, she previously worked as a political journalist in Moscow before relocating to the UK in 2014 and settling in the Netherlands in 2021. Her practice explores memory, mortality, and fractured identities through documentary, poetic, and performative approaches. Artist books are central to her work, with projects shortlisted for the Dummy Award, PhotoEspaña, and Encontros da Imagem.