Olga Kostina

About the Artist/Site

The Siberian taiga is one of the least populated areas on earth, with roughly three people per square kilometer. Most of the homes in this small village are simple structures, built from wood harvested from the local forests. Wanting to make hers distinctive, pensioner Olga Kostina began to collect the colorful plastic caps ubiquitously used on a range of bottles, and soon began to use them to decorate the façade of her one-story home. Estimates are that some 30,000 caps have already been attached to the wooden surface, each cap hammered separately through the center with a single nail.

Images include cartoon-like depictions of local woodland animals like squirrels and deer, but the majority of the design reflects the traditional abstract patterns used in regional embroidery and weaving designs, symmetrically laid out with contrasting borders.

~Jo Farb Hernández, 2015

Images by Ilya Naymushin © Reuters – get a sampling at http://www.designboom.com/art/30000-bottle-caps-decorate-russian-pensioners-home/