INTERVIEW | In conversation with Aleksey Manukyan on Time, Ritual, and Decay
- Yev Kravt
- May 7
- 21 min read
On March 28, 2025, I sat down with Armenian visual artist Aleksey Manukyan in the village of Hatsik, not far from Gyumri in Armenia, near the sacred stone Tsakqar, (arm. Ծակքար) a sacred stone with a narrow cleft, worn smooth by generations of bodies passing through it. It is said that to pass through it is to experience rebirth, a ritual of healing, of becoming, and of realizing one’s dreams.
We’ve been speaking for more than six months now. Over these months, I’ve gathered notes and fragments, reflections and impulses. They’ve now taken shape in the form of questions, some deeply personal, others more oriented toward his work.What follows is a long-form reflection on time, memory, decomposition, subjectivity, and the artist’s vanishing hand.
We spoke in Russian. The translation preserves Aleksey’s voice as closely as possible, alive, metaphoric, precise.
Yev Kravt
YK: Yev Kravt AM: Aleksey Manukyan
YK: So let me begin at the beginning: Was there a moment in your life when you realized you wanted to become an artist? And if there was, what did that moment feel like?
AM: Yes… Yes, there was. But before I answer, Yev, I just want to thank you. Really. For being here, for this interest, for this process we’ve been building together. I feel… how to say… inspired, honestly. These past six months we’ve worked intensely, and this interview feels like another kind of continuation, so thank you.
About that moment. It happened when I first entered the Art Academy. I had gone to sign up for the preparatory courses, the pre-admission year. I arranged everything: the payment, the schedule, how many weeks I’d have to attend, the whole thing. And then I stepped outside, onto the square in front of the building. And inside me, in my soul, I felt this… happiness. A deep, silent happiness. It was the kind of feeling I’ve only had a few times in my life. Like when my children were born. That exact sensation. Something that happens very deep inside. That moment, that day, I knew it. I didn’t just want to be an artist. I knew I could be one. There was this certainty. This confidence: I want this, and I can do this.
YK: It’s beautiful that we visited the Academy together today. The one where it all started. There’s a kind of loop being closed.
AM: Yes… yes. That place, it was essential. For my growth, for my creativity, for the whole trajectory of what came after. I met so many different people, artists, professors. And it didn’t matter if they were conservative, liberal, democratic, whatever. What mattered was that space, that intensity. That time still lives in me with very warm energy. Very positive.
YK: Let’s talk about one of the works we’ve returned to many times, your project with the apples. We visited the garden today; the new batch is already fermenting. The pigments are shifting, changing color, as if thinking in time. This project connects fermentation, biology, and mythology. Can you tell me, do you remember the very first moment when you realized that these decaying apples could become pigment? Was it an accident? Or was it already a kind of intention?
"For creative people, I think the biggest problem, the most essential challenge, is to see. To really see. "
AM: Yes… that’s a good question. Because it touches something deeper. You know, this project, it shaped my worldview. And in answering your question, I feel like I’m also brushing up against how I see the world. For creative people, I think the biggest problem, the most essential challenge, is to see. To really see. Because everywhere around us there are signs. Symbols. Clues. They’re always there. Right now, we’re surrounded by nature, and even here, there are suggestions, how to live, what to make, how to be. But the issue is, can we see them?
When your mind is open, when your thoughts are alive, it becomes easier. But if you’re closed, conservative, pessimistic, if you don’t delight in life, then these codes and clues stay hidden. You don’t see anything but your own problems. But when you open up…you start seeing this richness. The language of nature. The intelligence inside it. So no, it didn’t start with theory. Not at all. I didn’t even use the word BioArt back then.
I was already working with biological materials, but I wasn’t aware of it as a “field.” It wasn’t conceptual. It was intuitive. Then came the Biennale in Cyprus and the BioDesign Festival in Larnaca. And you came. Your interest in my work, it helped shape a new perspective for me. It was the first time I started looking at my process as BioArt. More attentively. More consciously. The exhibition we saw there, the Israeli artists, the technology, the biology, the design, it left a very strong impression. A long-lasting one. I remember every single work. So when I came back from Larnaca, I was still in that mode, attentive, open. And one day I was making apple vinegar in the garden, like always. And as usual, there was leftover pulp at the bottom of the barrel. Normally I would throw it away. And every time I did, I felt a bit sorry. But that day… I paused. I thought, wait. What if I don’t throw it away? What if I experiment?
Because of this material, it’s already doing something. It’s fermenting, it has bacteria, it has microorganisms. Let’s see what it wants to become.
So I left it.That was the beginning.
These were my first small experiments. And then it evolved. I told you about it. You were also interested. You saw the potential. And we kept going. And now… here we are.
YK: We’ve often returned to the idea of archaic memory, as something that exists both personally and collectively. I remember in one of our first conversations you said, “This memory is alive, it surrounds me.” How do you define this term, archaic memory? Do you see it as something that lives in the body? In culture? Or somewhere in between?
AM: I think about it often. I first really encountered the idea of the archaic while working in art therapy. I was working with children, some of them with physical disabilities, some with mental ones. And I would watch them create. I didn’t interrupt, I just observed, how they painted, how they shaped something. And I noticed something: across the world, children share the same dreams. The same fears. The same shadows. And it struck me: this isn’t just cultural. This is deeper. This is something we all carry.
The archaic, it’s the beginning of everything. It’s the moment before culture split into directions. It’s what evolution built us from. And viruses, yes, even viruses, were part of that. They reshaped our DNA. They made us who we are. In this way, I feel that what I do in my studio, this work with fermentation and transformation, runs in parallel with biological history. Of course, I don’t work in a lab. I don’t have scientific formulas. But I sense it. I touch it. The material tells me.
Even if I don’t know the formula for fermented apple pigment, I know how it smells, how it shifts, how it breaks apart in sunlight. This is its own kind of knowledge. And then there are the archetypes. Symbols. I find myself constantly returning to them, not always consciously. It’s like… you dive into a kind of meditation, and you meet something very old there. Something strange but familiar. And from that encounter, an artwork appears. It’s not always explainable. But it’s real.
YK: You once said something that stayed with me: that even the apple has archaic memory. That objects, materials, carry memory too. Do you see apples as having their own subjectivity?
AM: Yes. Of course. The apple has color, taste, shape, its own identity. It’s been through thousands of years of evolution, just like us. Its genetics carry time. We’ve shaped it, but it’s shaped us too. There’s a kind of kinship. A kind of mirror.
YK: And when you work with these materials, do you see them as collaborators? Do they speak back?
AM: Yes. Yes, they do. With the bees, for instance, I used to say, they are my co-authors. They create. I recognize. I give form. But the intelligence is mutual. And I can’t speak their language, not really. But I can feel what they’ve left behind. I can honor it. I can say: this came from them. This honeycomb, this structure, it’s a trace of their labor, their knowledge.
YK: And how does that extend to your work with metal? It’s such a different material, yet it seems equally personal.
AM: Metal… ah, yes. That’s a very special relationship. In Armenian, we call metal erkat (arm.երկաթ). The word comes from two parts: erkinq (arm.երկինք) meaning “sky,” and katel (arm.կաթել) meaning “to drip.” So literally, it means dripping from the sky.
Why? Because our ancestors believed that metal came from meteorites, falling from space. And it’s true. For millions of years, these cosmic bodies brought iron, elements we now use. So when I work with metal, I imagine this: a red-hot drop falling from the sky. A gift from a star. And then I weld it. I heat it again. It glows red, like it did when it first arrived. That’s how I see it. A sacred encounter.
"In orthopedics, metal is functional. It’s about healing bones, restoring movement. But in art, it becomes emotional. Symbolic. It carries memory."
YK: That’s a beautiful image. And it’s interesting because, in your previous life, you worked as an orthopedic specialist. Metal is used in both fields, surgery and sculpture. Do you feel the material shifts when it moves from one context to another?
AM: Absolutely. In orthopedics, metal is functional. It’s about healing bones, restoring movement. But in art, it becomes emotional. Symbolic. It carries memory. Still, I’m the bridge. I’ve lived in both worlds, and I think that’s important. Some artists grow up only in the art world, they don’t know life outside of it. But I’ve worked in hospitals. I’ve seen real suffering, real transformation. That experience comes back into the studio. It changes the way I see material, the way I touch it. It’s not just about form. It’s about consequences.
They are different worlds entirely, orthopedics and art. Opposite poles. But the bridge between them… is me. I am the connecting thread. I unify these two spheres, art and orthopedics, inside myself. If you’ve lived in other fields, if you’ve had to deal with society, with the friction of daily life, then something deeper will eventually return to you. Not always in the form you expect, but transformed. Transmuted. Art allows that.
YK: Yes. It all circles back, doesn’t it? And that brings me to the question of the social, the world we live in and are formed by. I recall you once said something that stayed with me: “One aspect of creation is the social dimension of life, it shapes us, both as individuals and as citizens.” Could you speak more about this, and how it reflects your position as an artist within today’s complex world?
AM:Yes, I remember. That’s an essential aspect of my thinking. During a presentation I gave in Paris, visual artist Ashot Ashot was there. Later, when I visited him, he said to me: “I don’t put much value on the experience of society. Society only takes from us, it consumes. We, artists, are the mediators between the material and the spiritual worlds. Our duty is to create pure art.”
I understood him, and I respect that position. But I said, “We must live in society. We don’t exist outside of it.” Society leaves marks on us, on our consciousness and our subconscious. We are not untouched. Every day, society consumes us. The moment you enter a crowded city, get on a bus, or walk through a market, you start losing parts of yourself. You’re forced to share. To give way. To make space. And that impacts who you are. But without it, what’s the point of our existence?
It’s very easy, perhaps even selfish, to isolate yourself, to walk away, to create in a vacuum without laws, without context. But I believe the harder, more truthful path is to remain in conflict with society, to experience that friction, and to let it shape you. That tension, between the personal and the public, is what forges a deeper self. I believe real transformation happens through conflict. Through tension. It is in friction with society that the artist becomes a person. Not despite it, but because of it.
YK: I remember you once told me: “We are always in dissonance.” Could you speak more about that? Especially in relation to your past, growing up in Gyumri, during and after the earthquake, in the Soviet and post-Soviet context.
AM: Yes. This dissonance has been with me since childhood. When I was younger, life felt very determined. Everything had a structure: You study. You work. You get your salary. You repeat. That predictability, it gives comfort, but also creates stagnation.
And then suddenly, the earthquake. Everything collapsed. The house, the street, the rules. What you thought was permanent became fragile. And since then, I’ve lived with uncertainty. I left my job. I chose a harder path, freelance, art, instability. Not because I wanted suffering, but because I wanted to feel alive. To choose my life, not just endure it. There’s no monthly salary, no guarantees. But that uncertainty, it keeps me present. It forces me to return to the past and ask: Where am I from? And then I ask the future: Where am I going? And in between those two, between past and future, is this space of dissonance.
That’s where my work lives.
YK: And yet, many people describe your work as clean, even pure. Land art, minimalist forms, delicate surfaces. How do you relate to this perception?
AM: Yes, I’ve heard that. “Clean art.” But to me, that purity is born from entanglement. From chaos. From turbulence. When I was younger, my work was more figurative, more expressive. Full of movement. But over time, something distilled. The forms became quieter. More essential. Almost ritualistic. I remember one sculptor visited my studio and said: “You’ve freed yourself from your fears. There’s harmony in these forms.” And another curator once suggested an exhibition title: “Clean.” But to be honest, I never felt clean. I was working in hospitals, teaching, running around, living a loud, messy life. The work was my refuge. The purity people saw, it was a process of refining, of surviving, of trying to hold on to something calm in the midst of dissonance.
"The gesture, the stroke, the signature, it wasn’t there. It had been erased by time, by process. And I thought: maybe this is my gesture. Maybe my role is not to dominate the material, but to step back. "
YK: You’ve also spoken about the absence of your hand in much of your work. In some pieces, the artist seems to disappear entirely. Was that intentional?
AM: At first, no. It was unconscious. A woman once asked me directly: “Where’s your hand? Where is the mastery? Who are you to call this art if we can’t see you in it?” It was sharp, even aggressive. We were sitting in a restaurant, and she attacked me with critique. I said, half-jokingly, “There is no hand.”
That night, I began to think deeply. I looked at my own work. And she was right. I began to think seriously: Where is my hand? In the land art pieces, especially the circular ones, there is no visible trace. When the work dries, its materiality vanishes. You see a defined geometric shape, yes, but not the gesture that made it. It’s impossible to guess how it was done, unless you saw me doing it with a syringe. Without that, it’s incomprehensible.The gesture, the stroke, the signature, it wasn’t there. It had been erased by time, by process. And I thought: maybe this is my gesture. Maybe my role is not to dominate the material, but to step back. To let the process speak.
YK: So your presence is in the disappearance?
AM: Yes. Exactly. Like a ritual. Like prayer. You don’t need to see the priest’s hand to feel the sacred. The work breathes on its own.
YK: So I want to ask: what does it mean for you to reconstruct your subjectivity through art?
AM: Subjectivity, for me, is a constellation of personal forms, internal structures that slowly form over time. These are the qualities, the skills, the internal rhythms that develop with experience. It’s like building a house. You place one stone, then another. Layer by layer, your subjectivity begins to take shape. It’s a life-long process. You look back and see who you were, you look around and feel who you are, and you begin to understand what you truly want out of this life.
YK: So then, what came first? The “clean,” or the entanglement? Or was it the other way around, entanglement first, and then a process of distillation? This tension we spoke about earlier, between gesture and stillness, between chaos and minimalism. It’s almost like your early works were tangled in figuration, in thick color and expressive form, but what we see now is highly symbolic. Almost distilled to essence.
AM: Yes. I was thinking about this just today. It’s as if I’ve always lived in several rooms at once. In one room, I was making expressionist abstractions. In another, minimalist works that came from a quiet, spiritual place.
There were times I had four rooms, each with a different energy. And I would move between them, not just physically, but emotionally. I’d leave all the expression in one room and enter another like a different person, working with calm and intention. Then, later, I’d go back, turn on some loud music, and throw myself into portraits or emotional gestures.
Even now, the pattern continues. When I’m working with soil, with the proportions of water and earth, it requires a meditative state. But once I’m drained, I walk to the forge, take a hammer and a paint pack, and begin striking, almost like a performance. And after that burst, I return to stillness. That back-and-forth is how I work.
The most fulfilling days, the ones where I feel most connected, are the days when I go to sleep and can’t even disconnect. My body may be tired, but spiritually I’m still inside the work. Even in dreams, I’m continuing what I started.
I wake up, and it’s as if I never stopped. I just keep going. There are many states of being and I seem to be living in all of them at once.
"We’re so used to recognition. We want to know immediately: what is this? We demand the answer. And yet… the mystery is part of the work."
YK: There’s a certain state you enter, something I sense not only in your presence, but in the work itself. A kind of duality. A palpable tension between control and surrender.
Do you find yourself actively navigating that tension, balancing between deliberate labor and something more intuitive or spiritual? Or is it simply embedded in the work, woven into its very form, even if you don’t consciously impose it?
AM: That’s an interesting way to look at it. Perhaps that’s the key, to view my work through that lens. Because people often ask: what is it made of? What is this material? They don’t recognize it. And that mystery, that duality, has always been there with me. It continues still.
When I approach a material, I do so with a kind of intimate understanding. I begin to see it so deeply that its materiality begins to disappear. When I work with earth, people ask: what is it? From what is it made? And I realize, it’s no longer about matter. Something else remains. A kind of spirit.
YK: Somehow still recognizable, if just barely.
AM: Exactly. It becomes a kind of mysticism. When the essence is erased or obscured, it provokes discomfort. We’re so used to recognition. We want to know immediately: what is this? We demand the answer. And yet… the mystery is part of the work.
YK: Let’s speak about time. It plays such a critical role in your work, fermentation, evaporation, cracking, aging. How do you relate to time as a material?
AM: There are two kinds of time. Material time, and immaterial time. Even in mythology, we find these concepts. I recently read an interview with the French social philosopher, Gilles Deleuze, titled On Music, where he speaks about how time can fracture. One kind of time he called Chronos (from Ancient Greek Χρόνος, meaning “time” as measurable duration) the measurable Greek notion of time. He also refers to, if I recall correctly, as Aion (from Ancient Greek Αἰών, meaning lifespan, generation, eternity) a kind of time beyond time.
This Aion is closely bound to the concept of art, where time loses its territoriality and material weight. Because when you create something, a process, or a finished work, time shifts. It no longer flows the way we expect. The usual laws fall away. We’re left with something else: an immaterial presence.
Deleuze spoke of composers like Philip Glass, who fragmented time, folded it into itself. It’s a scholarly way to describe it. But in my case, I experience time more through information. Time, for me, becomes palpable when it carries something, when it moves meaning.
In the past, people exchanged information orally, slowly. Mouth to ear, story to story. Months would pass before something reached its destination. But now…
YK: Now, it arrives before you even ask.
AM: Exactly. In milliseconds. And because time has sped up, art has changed with it. In the Middle Ages, artists could labor over a single piece for five years. Today, the rhythm of life doesn’t allow for that. You’re pulled along by the current.
You’re constantly catching fragments. You work quickly because you must. Society is shifting faster and faster. And in that shifting, you’re forced to protect your inner tempo, to guard your own borders, your own identity, so that you’re not swallowed entirely by the velocity of the world.
YK: When we consider time in the broader sense... not just the internal time of the maker, but the time made visible in the work, how it settles into materials, how it leaves traces on form. I wonder: could you speak more deeply about your relationship with time as it appears physically in your work?
AM: Yes, of course. It’s a very interesting question. and one that, I think, brings new thoughts, even new conceptual openings. Time brings these with it, if you allow it.
I’ve begun to reflect more and more on this idea, how to slow time down. Not stop it, that’s impossible. But slow it. And how to express that slowing inside the work.
For example, yesterday I performed a small experiment. A performance, really. I used a syringe, dripping water onto two identical objects. On one, I left the object open to the air. On the other, I placed a sealed dome, from which I extracted the air, a vacuum.
And what you see is this: in the open environment, the water evaporates quickly. Time moves fast. But in the vacuum, where evaporation slows or nearly stops, time becomes dense, almost suspended. Of course, it’s not actually stopped, but something has shifted. Something in the flow of time is delayed. And that delay, that tension between slowness and speed, becomes visible.
YK: And decay, is it just a symptom of time? Or do you consider it a material force in itself?
AM: Decay is essential. Not just thematically, but biologically, spiritually. At night, when I go to bed, I tell my partner: “I’m going. I’m dissolving now.” And I mean it. Sleep is a kind of death. A temporary disintegration. In the mor ning, I come back together. But every night, there’s a little rehearsal for disappearance.
I think that’s what draws me to materials that die, that rot, that fall apart. It’s honest. Nothing stays the same. The pectin in the apple dries into crust. The wax cracks. The metal rusts. But within all that, there’s grace. There’s meaning.
YK: That’s an extraordinary way to make time visible, even tactile. And as you speak, I’m reminded of the ambient sounds we hear now. The background hum, the social textures of space. They, too, are forms of time.
AM: Yes, that’s a very deep question and a difficult one.
Earlier today, we touched on this, when I spoke about leaving everything behind. I made a decision: I didn’t want to be a bitter worker, someone resentful of life. I wanted to live in a way that felt meaningful. Even if it meant difficulty. Even if it meant risk.
What came with that choice was a deep level of uncertainty. But now, in this unpredictable space, everything is alive. You might go to sleep and wake up completely transformed. Or not wake at all. These are also probabilities. And within them is the necessity to reconcile with the past, to speak to it, even to scream at it, argue, cry. And then, from that platform, begin to build a future.
Sometimes you realize: I’ve finished that conversation. I’ve said what needed to be said to my past. Now I’m ready to move forward.
YK: Even the earthquake becomes part of that dissonance, the tension between rupture and stability. I imagine that in Gyumri, before the quake, your days may have looked quite similar, studies, structure, the patterns of the Soviet system. And then, in a single moment, everything collapsed. Maybe that was where dissonance began.
AM: Yes, it began from that very depth. From the fault lines beneath us, literally and figuratively. We were there then. And we are here now. But those same pressures continue.
The important thing is to find a balance with the past. Because there is always the danger that you’ll remain stuck there. Just recently, a maestra came to do a workshop of Arpine, my wife. After the workshop, she said something beautiful: “There’s a kind of art you could create. But if you don’t do it, someone else will. Someone else will come and make the art you were meant to make spiritual, high-level, unique art. So make it. Make it yourself.”
That’s a reflection through the lens of society. And without that reflection, none of this, none of this creation would be possible.
YK: A slightly different question now, Aleksey, but one I’ve long wanted to ask.
If you could work with any philosopher or thinker, living or no longer with us, who would it be? And why?
AM: You know, when I was in Paris, we used to pass the doors of the Paris Institute of Philosophy daily. It was right next to where we were staying. That entire generation of social philosophers, Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, Sartre, Lévi-Strauss, they shaped the entire European intellectual landscape.
It’s said they used to drink beer at a place just across from the institute. One of our professors even took us there, said, “This is where the minds of the civilization used to gather.” And I felt it, I felt that presence. I’m not an expert on all their writings, of course. There isn’t enough time to read it all. But their ideas shape you, even indirectly. They built the structures we now navigate.
Think of anthropology. It was born from necessity. When the British colonized half the world, they realized: we don’t understand these people. We need a science to decode them. And so, anthropology was born, not as a celebration of culture, but as a tool of control.
YK: For communication, and domination.
AM: Yes. If we’re honest. The so-called humanitarian sciences were born from this need. But now, we artists, we can reclaim them. Use them in more humane, poetic ways. That’s the difference. At least, I hope so. And no, I’m sure of it.
YK: Let’s return to a topic we’ve only touched upon: the presence, or absence of the artist’s hand. In some of your recent works, there’s a marked lack of gesture, a withdrawal of the hand. Was this a conscious decision, to erase your authorship?
AM: Yes… that brings to mind the film Werk ohne Autor or Never Look Away in English, directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. It’s loosely based on the life of Gerhard Richter, and in it, there’s this profound reflection on authorship. Richter once made a series of paintings based on photographs, monochrome portraits, airplanes, everyday subjects, painstakingly copied from old images. He called the series Paintings Without an Author. In a sense, the true authors were the photographers; Richter became a vessel, a reframing device.The film captures this ambiguity.
In my case, no, it wasn’t a deliberate erasure at first. I didn’t realize it myself, until much later.
Another artist, Ara Haytayan, once showed me his canvases, thick with brushwork. “Here,” he said, “you can see my hand.” And yes, you could: the paint, the gesture, the trace. Like the abstract works of mine you saw today, those still carry my hand.
But during one of my shows at a Swiss foundation, I remember telling visitors: “Everything you see here… these are preparatory works.” Many were confused, some disappointed. “If this is only preparation, where are the real works?” they asked. Maybe they thought I was being sarcastic. But I meant it. Everything up to now has felt like groundwork. What comes next will be… something else entirely.
Still, you can’t cut the cord completely. There will always be a thread linking those earlier works with what’s to come. My body remembers. My gesture remembers. Even if it’s not visible, it’s encoded.
YK: It sounds like a personal kind of archaeology. A private archaic memory.
AM:Exactly. These are my personal archaic symbols, gestures that live within me. I have to keep working with them. They deserve the chance to emerge.
"Ritual connects to the memory of a people. Art belongs to the moment."
YK: That reminds me of something you said yesterday, let’s quote Ashot again. When he visited your studio, he said: “This is a ritual. And this is also art.” What do you think he meant by that? What, for you, is the difference between ritual and artwork?
AM: When Ashot spoke of ritual, he meant that what we call ritual often ends up in historical museums, objects with a function, made by various peoples across time. Stones, tools, objects used for something. And yes, those are ritual objects. But art, art is different. Art is something you won’t find anywhere else. Only in this studio. Only now. Only in this time. That’s art. Ritual connects to the memory of a people. Art belongs to the moment.
YK: Do you have personal rituals in your process?
AM: Yes. My performances, those are my rituals. And sometimes, I watch myself from the outside. When I’m in the studio, I shift perspective. I watch myself from above, from another height. I see a figure performing his own ritual. And we call it many things, performance, work-in-progress, installation, but for me, it’s a personal ritual. A search through my own archaic gestures. I find them, and I begin to play with them, to work with them, to make peace or conflict with them. To be strict. To be tender. All of that is part of the ritual. And that ritual shapes my world in art.
YK: We’re slowly coming to the end, and the sun, too, is setting gently. Sometimes you work alone, sometimes with bees, sometimes with other forces altogether and in the process, the work begins to decompose. You often work with active materials, living, breathing, and ever-changing. What draws you to the process of decay and decomposition?
AM: Here, in nature, all around us, the decomposition is always happening. What once lived, once produced chlorophyll for photosynthesis and gave us breath, must now return to another state. It’s no longer alive in the way we define life, but it’s transforming. It’s not death, it’s another form.
It’s strange, but I watch the bees decompose. The mushrooms eat them. Isn’t that right? The bee had its life, productive, reproductive, and then it becomes food for bacteria. And there’s something deeply respectful about that. The bee gave what it could to the world, and now it continues its journey.
YK: Exactly. Perfectly said. Thank you, Aleksey.
AM: Thank you for coming.
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