For a long time, people have been consuming natural resources and borrowing from nature. However, as those resources are transformed, a person often loses a sense of gratitude and measure. In industrial cities, a modern person especially lacks the opportunity to notice the resourcefulness of the environment, so this series is an attempt to return man to nature and vice versa.

Plants and soil for natural dyeing were collected with the participation of the residents of Soledar while strolling around the city in June 2021. Pigments of plants and mineral dyes of the earth were transferred to canvases. The elements of clothing used in the artwork hint at the presence of a human in the landscape and their ability to deconstruct but also create something new. Disassembled into its components, the landscape of the summer steppe turns into a way of mimicking the environment by appropriating the properties of plants and earth, through colour and contours, through clothing, which is the thinnest membrane between the human body and the surrounding world. Today, the city of Soledar is occupied and almost destroyed as a result of hostilities. It is unknown what is happening in the city now. In essence, this body of work created back in 2021 preserved the landscape that is now forever changed because of war.

Art residency “Grounding“, Platform for Cultural Initiatives “IZOLIATSIA“