Trapped by Time by Alena Rogozhkina in Edinburgh

Trapped by Time (2022) is a contemporary art installation supported by VACMA funding that included a research stage in which Alena involved the local community to participate. The installation also has an interactive element in a form of a thought-provoking question that viewers are invited to respond to: If time invited you for a coffee, what would you ask? Over the Autumn period, reflecting on her own personal frustration between funding applications, Alena conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with 13 participants including tenants, employees, and visitors of the Arthur Conan Doyle Centre. She tried to capture the themes and metaphors that people have regarding Time in their everyday lives. She also asked participants to envision time as a concept beyond clocks and watches. At the end of each interview, she asked each participant to hand her an ordinary object from their working or home environment that would visually represent the symbol of time to them in an abstract way at their current stage of life. Inspired by a corner under the magnificent staircase that people see straight away when entering the building, Alena assembled various objects that she received in a side-responsive intervention.