2025
Installation (bedding, cyanotype)
4 objects: sheet (142*210 cm), 2 pillowcases (42*60 cm), duvet cover (160*210 cm)

On the bed linen hung in the yard, I printed images of buildings in Kharkiv destroyed by Russian rockets.

This work represents my vision of stories about how, in nearly completely destroyed buildings and cities, people try to cling to their ordinary reality, performing simple everyday tasks. Like washing laundry (which may still be clean), wallpapering a hallway (which most likely won’t exist in a few days), or planting a garden, etc.

When I was taking photos in North Saltivka (Kharkiv), construction workers were painting a high-rise building. They were covering the black soot with white paint, while every building in the district was destroyed (to varying degrees)—burned, without windows, without separate apartments, without intact entrances.

My work is about the attempts of the human psyche to hold on to familiar domestic things when there is nothing else to hold onto. It’s about the desire to maintain some control over what is happening when your reality is crumbling into pieces.

Through the conflict between the peaceful symbol of bed sheets drying in the yard and the images of destruction, I tried to convey the inner conflict that arises within a person, as described above.

“This is the best visualization of the search for normalcy in times that are anything but normal.” – Valeria Radkevich

The photographs of Kharkiv were taken in September 2024.