Patches
Is a project that started in the Spring of 2018. I hosted the exhibition "Self-destruction and Self-care" in my rented apartment in Kyiv back then. The exhibition was curated by artist and critic Valentyna Petrova. I joined it with the work "Patches", which is still in developing and growing.
This project is about a difficult relationship with myself and my family. About love, which sometimes saves, and sometimes does not allow to breathe. About the care that only one person in the world is capable of. About the care I want to be capable of. About heavy objects. About food. About loneliness. About memory, which constitutes me. About guilt. About gratitude. About Woman.
This project is about a difficult relationship with myself and my family. About love, which sometimes saves, and sometimes does not allow to breathe. About the care that only one person in the world is capable of. About the care I want to be capable of. About heavy objects. About food. About loneliness. About memory, which constitutes me. About guilt. About gratitude. About Woman.
My 90's are closely tied to patches of fabric. Linen or cotton. White, pale blue, or in flowers. Those were pieces of bed linen, pijamas, curtains, and so on. From some scraps my mother sewed bags for cereals, others we used as a dishrag or as pads during menstruation.
Sometimes my mom sends me parcels with homemade food. Recently, I have picked up one. When I opened the box, I saw scraps there. My mother used it as a wrap for her arugula, lettuce, parsley, beets, and chicken.
I unwrapped all of it and hung the patches to dry on the balcony. I looked at them, and I thought that these were probably pieces of some old sheet.
Today I was thinking about the boxes my mother sends me. I posted one in the project story. An artist from Poland was moved by the raspberries folded into a piece of paper. I tried to explain that my mother has been carrying weights all her life, and now she sends me parcels of ten kg instead of five ( her uterus prolapses, she will get it cut out). I think they barely got it. I think me receiving these boxes may look weird for some.
I tried to explain to myself, and it came to me - those parcels are not about food. Not about any real understandable help. They are something else, on top, and more important than this. Added value is a gift, a ritual. In the bewitched world this ritual has denaturalized and became visible. I can see how unusual it is. I have finally understood - this is a real treasure.
I tried to explain to myself, and it came to me - those parcels are not about food. Not about any real understandable help. They are something else, on top, and more important than this. Added value is a gift, a ritual. In the bewitched world this ritual has denaturalized and became visible. I can see how unusual it is. I have finally understood - this is a real treasure.
During the Woven Network residence, I received several parcels. I found pieces of sheets, curtains, towels, which are familiar to me from my childhood. Those are things from my house, which came back to me, the house comes back to me in patches, or I build another house for myself. These things live another life of their own now and I want them to live. That's why I make sculptures out of them.
Artist: Oksana Kazmina
We express our gratitude to European Union and House of Europe programme.
2020 - 2022