Analogue Appreciation: Maria Teriaeva’s five pieces that…

From Sayan to Savoie — In an ever more digital, online world, we ask our favourite artists about their most cherished pieces of physical culture. First up, the Siberian-born, Paris-based composer and synthesist.

Composer and synthesist Maria Teriaeva grew up in Sayan Mountains in Siberia, Russia, deep in the centre of the Asian continent, before moving to Moscow as a young adult.

But as a member of the queer community, growing homophobia in her home country ultimately forced her to leave two years ago, when she relocated to Paris. In 2023, Russia’s Supreme Court ruled the “international LGBT movement” as an “extremist organisation”, effectively criminalising queer activism, with Human Rights Watch claiming that the decision “opened the floodgates to allow arbitrary prosecution of LGBT people and of anyone who defends their rights or expresses solidarity with them”.

Her new album, Sayan - Savoie, releasing on February 7, explores her journey of rediscovering herself amid displacement, while also learning how to fully express herself in spaces that accept her. Considered, longing synth lines build into moments of sublime release, with the music drawing the links between her home and adopted countries – the title itself draws lines between the mountains she grew up in and the French Alps.

For Analogue Appreciation, our new series celebrating the value of physical culture in an ever more digitised world, she picked out five of her favourite pieces that give her a sense of home in a foreign place. “I think the main theme of my objects is love and memory,” she explains. “Sometimes these concepts take on an amazing form, sometimes they are distorted and arrive in an altered state, but they always carry great and important meaning.

“I spent more than half of my life in Siberia, and this is the second major relocation in my life (the first was from Siberia to Moscow),” she continues. “Physical objects are what help me feel at home.”

Musical instruments and my home studio

Maria Teriaeva: They are my passion, my work, and my favourite art objects.

(Pictured: Keen Association 224e module.)

Knitted socks from my mother

M: After one-and-a-half years since emigrating, my mother visited me in Paris for the first time, bringing 19 pairs of knitted socks! Now I have only one problem – I can't bring myself to wear them because they are too beautiful and filled with too much love.

The distorted heart from the cover of my new album Sayan - Savoie

M: The object, cast by artist Roma Bantik from recycled Renault engines, was not meant to take any particular form when we worked on the album cover. But the moment I saw this distorted heart, I knew it perfectly captured the essence of the album.

My girlfriend Arina’s fencing mask

M: When she is not around or away at competitions, it serves as her invisible presence and a piece of her incredible world that stays with me.

A photograph of my great-great-grandfather, Stefan Vaskin

Stefan emigrated in the early 20th century from Central Russia to Siberia with the goal of developing the land. The violin in the photograph was made by him. This photograph, found in a family album during my intense musical exploration in adolescence, validated my passion for music in the eyes of my family and even in my own.

Sayan - Savoie by Maria Teriaeva is out on February 7.

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