STOLEN CHILDHOOD. 2022

installation​

War is always a stolen childhood. The loss of home, support, parents, favorite toys... The loss of future bright memories. That same stable feeling of love and security that is laid down in childhood is undermined. Those who have seen explosions and death will always remember it. Even a short war kills for a long time.

The Stolen Childhood project was created in February-March 2022. I was leaving Russia because I couldn't accept what was happening there. I couldn't keep silent either, and it became dangerous to talk. I was packing my suitcases selectively, throwing my son's toys in there. At that moment, a doll's shoe caught my eye. It definitely wasn't one of my son's toys. Just a strange, blue shoe out of nowhere.

I leaned over him and understood everything... and started to cry. Cry for a long time. Then I put the shoe in my suitcase, bought a tool for children's creativity - a wood burner and a few more toys and flew to Sri Lanka.

This is my second home.

From the wreckage of fishing boats and toy fragments, using burning, I created the installation "Stolen Childhood". Toys are only an allegory. They embody the images of people with their broken lives and, at the same time, the sincere childhood pain that a child experiences when his favorite toy is broken.

I cried a lot while working on this installation.

My childhood was spent in Ukraine. The childhood of many Ukrainian children was forever broken by terrible events.