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DARIA KHOZHAI          PRACTICE         PROJECTS        EXPLORATIONS        NOW

Pravda (Правда – “Truth")

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This is my home. The home where I was born and grew up. The home that I loved. The home I can never return to. No roof, no floor, no walls are left. Only memories and emotions, pain, despair, nostalgia and loss.

Half a year ago my inner little-girl`s safe zone collapsed. My childhood room (a memory of it) became a refugee. Despite displacement and a vulnerable state, She bears her heritage and burden with herself. Her walls are growing stronger and stronger every day.

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Headlines from top to bottom in a left side: “Glory to free Ukraine”

(newspaper when the first president of Ukraine was elected), “500 years old Democracy”.

In order to invite visitors to my home, my memories and the madness I am living in I recreated a 1:1 model of my childhood room in a family apartment in Kyiv. To share the history my Room and I have witnessed during my lifetime.

Materials: 31 layers of newspapers, my tears and potato starch. 

Layer 1. : newspapers from August 24, 1991. Soviet Union Collapse, Reestablishment of Ukraine's state independence (Declaration of independence of Ukraine), the time I was born free. Layer 31. : newspapers from February 24, 2022 of the russian invasion of Ukraine.

Till now, the newspapers have been hidden under the wallpapers of mine and millions of other homes. That meant to cover the imperfections of the Stalin’s, Brezhnev`s and Khrushev’s  building`s walls (typical apartment buildings built in the USSR. Apartment plan that every Ukrainian knows, lives or lived.) Now, when walls are ruined, at last, the Truth has been revealed.

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Headlines from top to bottom: “Voice of Ukraine”, “Independency”, “Ukraine is one, indivisible”, “Pravda of Ukraine”.

My room is currently a refugee, and will continue it`s journey, until She can come back Home. Follow!

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Me in my childhood room.

Newspaper “Правда” can be seen under wallpaper.

Project: Daria Khozhai

Year: September 2022

Venue: Het Nieuwe Instituut (Gallery 3), Museumpark 25, Rotterdam 

Photography: Jouke Bos

Special thanks to Daniyal Sherafat, Ronald Rietveld, David Habets and Erick de Lyon  for all the help and support.

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