Reconstruction of the Ordinary 2024- ongoing
Concrete panelled and brick buildings always remind me of the so-called Khrushchevkas in my neighbourhood where I grew up in Ukraine. I came across similar buildings in East Berlin and also in Cairo, where the amount of concrete is so overwhelming that it is hard to imagine that behind each of these windows, individuals live their most ordinary lives.
In Reconstruction of the Ordinary I created eight photograph- collages, which blend buildings from the three places I've each lived in (Lviv, Berlin, Cairo) and installed them in the space. Accompanied, I created sound collages of different stories in different languages, which some did and some may have happened: A family dinner a work, a working from home designer, a refugee who just arrived in berlin trying to understand how to get his registration. The sound installation could be listened on one eared headphones.
In 2025 the exhibition toured to Cairo, where I added eight more pictures, most of them featuring bridges in Cairo, which always suddenly appear in the landscape — authorities build these bridges so often that online maps have a hard time keeping up, so that you end up lost. These photos are also collages, where I added buildings from Berlin and Lviv.
Half-Seated, performed at Arcade Gallery, 2025, 21min
The exhibition “Reconstruction of the Ordinary” was accompanied by a co-directed performance with Islam Elarabi.
In a confined space, movement and restriction intertwine as we explore the tension between attachment and liberation. The body negotiates its limits, caught between resistance and surrender. Through this dynamic, the search for home becomes a negotiation of identity — a constant push and pull between belonging and detachment.
We called the piece Half-Seated. Islam begins trapped on a chair and only later discovers there is an outside to it. Yet after leaving the chair behind, he realises he doesn’t truly want to let go.
