Collaboration with Nadiya Petrovska
Concrete, glass, plastic, acrylic, liquid.
Size: 12 x 13 x15 cm
This concrete shelters have been installed in Ukrainian front-line cities to protect the civil population from Russian bombs and artillery. We adopted this experience from Israel. Such products are called “Safeplace”. In Kherson, they can most often be found near shops or public transport stops. The largest and most reliable of them is probably the state border with EU countries. However, in many light years and kilometers from Ukraine, the war and the frontline Kherson, a peaceful citizen who needs to pay bills or share living space with loved ones has own “air raid alert” and own “shelters”. It can be food, alcohol or drugs, entertainment, work or caring for loved ones. Right now you hold one of the most effective shelters from anxiety in your hands. But, both in wartime and in peacetime, if war indeed may teach us something, anywhere in the world, shelter does not solve the problem, but only creates the illusion that you can continue to live with it.
Series concept
The gift that no one would want to receive.
It is unlikely that anyone in their right mind would want to receive such a gift, but unfortunately, our fate and nervous system do just that and leave us no other choice. War is traumatic. It will end someday, but triggers - certain objects, sounds, and places - will periodically return us to the feelings and states that we experienced and are still experiencing. They settle on the bottom of our psyche like a heavy block of concrete and will lie there as long as they are connected to intense negative emotions and feelings. Until we have rethought the events that have happened and understood what has changed in our personality and values for the better. Until the traumatic memories fit into neat row of blocks in the foundation of the structure that we have not yet become. It is impossible to run away from triggers, they can and should be discharged, before inherited by children.