60×400 cm, 15×15 cm, 15×20 cm
Graphic sheets, artist books, 2024
The project “About Return” is a personal reflection on the concept of home, which has always held a special meaning for me. Living in a borderland increasingly blurs the boundaries of normalcy and the perception of danger. Those who remain are the ones who cannot be uprooted, who are deeply tied to their land, like century-old trees. These people are an extension of their homes, hostages to their geography and history. Those who stay at the edge do so because they cannot act otherwise. Today, just ten kilometers from the border with Russia, they care for their animals, work their land, and prepare jars of preserves they insist you take with you. Here, everything grows. This land is worth everything.
The project consists of a series of graphic sheets and artist books. The sheets depict panoramas composed of landscapes I captured while traveling home. Scarred fields, forest fires, broken trees, and landscapes untouched by war but constantly under threat of destruction. Sometimes, landscapes hurt… The artist books focus on places and people. They are travel diaries, transcripts of phone conversations, images of places that appear in dreams. And above all, they are about care—care for the land, for loved ones, for animals, and for the deceased. Life on the borderland is about the vulnerability of our landscapes and our bodies, the fragility of life, and the continuity of our care.
A zine inspired by Volodymyr Zatulivitry’s poem “The trains that would bring us home have weakened…” includes etchings tied to my hometown. The central characters of the book are places—they preserve and bear witness to various events of my childhood and teenage years. A mailbox that no longer receives letters; the frame of a road sign stripped of the town’s name; a stadium sign once crafted by my father; the fence of my great-grandmother’s grave…
“10 Random Calls.” Every day, I call my mother. I have a habit of walking during these calls. What comes to mind while walking cannot be thought of in any other state. It helps to ground oneself while listening to stories of shelling, sleepless nights, and the broken lives of people.
“Horns, Tails, Legs.” Grandma and grandpa gave me half a sack of potatoes they grew in their garden. Quite quickly, the potatoes started sprouting. Their main advice was to snap off the sprouts — horns, tails, legs — and eat the potatoes as soon as possible.
