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Kurgans, tombs and us, 2024 - 2025
“Кургани, могили та ми” video essay, sculpture, sound installation, photo and text, in co-authorship with Jenya Milyukova and Anna Ivchenko
video stills
For many Ukrainians, kurgans were a familiar landscape element as well as an important cultural symbol. Many of these mounds are protected archaeological sites where historians and archaeologists have found crucial artifacts that shed light on ancient burial traditions. Many of them have become inaccessible due to the russian invasion of Ukraine, as kurgans are either occupied, heavily shelled, damaged, or used as military heights.
Recognizing the value of our spaces of memory, to which it is essential to return in any way possible as they hold a connection to the land, our ancestors, and history, we went to the hard-to-reach mounds of the Dnipro region to conduct field research around them: moving between memories, passed-down myths, imaginaries, and the reality of walking through the winter fields, finding trenches, flowers, missile parts, mimicking Scythian rituals, and lying in the eye of a volcano.
With the support of Scattered Communities - Розсіяне Засіяне grant program (Asortymentna Kimnata, Insha Osvita, Robert Bosch Stiftung, Goethe-Institut)
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