This piece is part of Palimpsest, a series of mixed-media collages by Anastasia Tribambuka that trace memory, presence, and absence. Interweaving fragments of personal and collective histories, the exhibition reflects on what connects us — and the fragile imprints left behind.

This particular work incorporates typewritten samizdat texts that the artist’s grandmother produced in her bedroom in the USSR during the 1980s to spread among her friends. Its title refers to a phrase once used by Soviet artists and intellectuals to describe the inner refuge one creates when the external world becomes intolerable. The expression, now resurfacing in contemporary Russia, resonates once again amid renewed restrictions on freedom of thought and speech.