rust in time

Medium: Installation, rust found chain, latex

rust in time (2022) is a personal body of work about my family home in Ivanovka, a small village in Donbas, Eastern Ukraine, that has become a military base. In Summer 2021 despite the restricted borders, I managed to visit my parents' home. It felt strange; a moment of great stillness along with arresting hopelessness, and I was particularly struck by the many rusted objects lying around which signaled the area’s industrial past. 

The rusted objects presented here were collected in Scotland; at the seashore, Edinburgh streets, friend’s gardens, and hidden scrap yards. For me these objects began to form an emotional link between my two homes, helping me to cope as the situation began to rapidly worsen in Ukraine. 

Finally, I painted on layers of latex, a liquid rubber which was then peeled carefully off, providing me with the moments of deep emotional relief. The latex for me is a bandage, helping to heal and support both the work and the artist, as I move forward with the pain. 

The project was initially exhibited at Custom Lane, Edinburgh as part of the End of Year Show at Leith School of Art (June 2022) for which I won the Outstanding Contemporary Art Practice Award. As a special addition to the show, in collaboration with Volunteer Edinburgh, Ukrainian Community Club (AUGB), and Custom Lane, I managed to bring a group of displaced people who recently arrived from Ukraine. This collaboration was a pinnacle for my evolving socially-engaged practice and seeded the idea behind Abandoned Artists CIC.

In August 2022 Rust in Time was exhibited as a part of the public art show Consequences. Art and Activism in the Nuclear Age at the Out of the Blue Drill Hall, Edinburgh.