Fermented leaves, mirrors, lanterns, 2024
The installation uses leaves collected in Babyn Yar — a burial site for numerous victims of the Holodomor and executions of various nationalities carried out during World War II. In 1950, the Soviet authorities decided to fill Babyn Yar with industrial waste from the Petrovsky brick factories to create a flat landscape, lay transport routes, and build a park there. This reckless planning led to the Kurenivka tragedy — a man-made disaster that occurred in Kyiv on March 13, 1961, when a powerful mudflow from Babyn Yar burst through a dam, flooding Kurenivka and causing numerous casualties.
For years, the Soviet authorities tried to suppress the memory of the tragedies of the Holodomor, the Holocaust, and the Kurenivka disaster, all of which took place at Babyn Yar in different years. Do we have the right to forget this?
