During her residency, Anastasiia Leliuk worked on an immersive exhibition dedicated to the Ukrainian dissident Ivan Svitlychny.

Anastasiia Leliuk: The figure of Ivan Svitlychny (20 October 1929, Polovinkine, Starobil District, Ukrainian SSR — November 25, 1992, Kyiv, Ukraine) is on the border between the world of ideas and matter. With his life, he personified that inner energy which causes everything to manifest in the visible world, he was a light that pierces the darkness. His works are filled with the intensity of the struggle of that era, when Russification, under the guise of internationalism, confidently permeated all spheres of life. Fortunately, it is impossible to fully comprehend the tragedy and strength of the generation that laid down their lives for the sake of Ukrainian identity. How impossible it is to fully understand someone else’s experience without having a similar one. In this chain of transmission of social consciousness, we find ourselves at a kind of border where there are no semitones. Social memory is quickly transformed into individual memory under the influence of an external threat. And knowingly or not, we continue to construct tomorrow’s possibilities or their absence. Svitlychny passed away 31 years ago, but as his wife recalled, “Physically, Ivan died in his bed in October 1992, and as a creative person, he died in August 1981 in exile in Altai.” So this exhibition became another attempt to preserve the connections between people and events that, despite pressures and obstacles, did so much for us to have our identity.