Excerpts from the video installation:
“On the streets I really do feel completely free, because this is not anything shameful and I am a normal person. I mean, I am not trying to flaunt it, but I don't hide it, I am the way that I am, and if people don't accept it, it's their right to not interact with me. It never occurred to me to be ashamed of it, I am just... just natural. I came to St Petersburg from a provincial town, quite a small one. All people know each other, and the situation in my family is that my parents are aware. They know about my women, they knew practically from the very beginning. As soon as I realized it about myself, I immediately told my mom. Problems of course did arise, but now everything is okay. But since it’s a very small town, this doesn’t get outside of my family, because my mom, no matter how much she cares about me, still considers it a shame. And relatives do know, but everything outside the family is covered in secret.” Alya

“St Petersburg is a capital, truly a capital of gay culture. There are a lot of clubs, but even that’s not the most important. What’s even more important is that the number of people of untraditional orientation is very large, there are a lot of them, one can meet them everywhere and they don't hide their preferences, which makes me quite happy.” Tanya

“Since our country just came out of heavy oppression, it needs to recover, to get rid of these moral prejudices that stand in the way of new happenings. When they say that our population is diminishing - it's true - but it's not because we have gays and lesbians, it's not so. I think that people should have good relations with each other, love each other so that everything goes well. But of course now in our country it's not possible, namely because people are not ready for it yet.” Irena

“Future perspective is quite foggy, but most importantly I know that we need to look ahead, move forward, try to achieve recognition, to be heard, to be perceived as the people with the same equal rights as everyone, which is what we are. Because it’s very important. Because to hide from society and to live somewhere in your own little world without taking into account the surrounding community is difficult, because sooner or later you will have to clash with it. It's necessary to fight for recognition, it's necessary to fight for some kind of same-sex unions. Because living as a family when you have a family, there is a lot of problems that arise around it, and if we at least had some small privileges from the government, possibly these problems would be much easier to solve.” Sasha

“The situation in the country, as is usual for our country, is complicated. As far as lesbian rights, they are denied in many ways, but the main discrimination is for the same-sex marriage and for adoption of children. Rights to give birth to a child and register the child to yourself and your girlfriend. Rights to go abroad, which is very important, being in a couple with a woman - it’s practically impossible. Because if you are going abroad to work, your girlfriend will not be allowed to go with you, because she is not a family member.” Alona

“We have leaders who just want to be leaders, maybe that is not enough.” Katya

State of Mind (Installation view) Gallery K1, Kulturhuset, Stockholm, Sweden, 2008 (Projection hd, 7 monitors sd, sound)

State of Mind also travels with two formats carried out by the artist in addition to the traditional artist talks also performed at each venue. The other are two workshops done with the local activists and academic communities; Lezzie Think Tank a relay of questions pass on from one city to the next and Leaving Your Traces new video segments from each city based on a set of questions designed to give a notion of the everyday life for an LGBTQ person in that specific city.