"Immigration feels like a complete unraveling of the self. Once you close the door of your home in the seek of a better life, new emotions or whatever it is out there, you are entering this endless race of finding the home again."
Artist: Olha Lobazova
Project: Kintsugi
"Sometimes I think about home as a place where I grew up and then childhood memories make you feel small and home feels so warm but distant. Sometimes I think about home as an abstract concept, both existing and non-existent simultaneously. A place I'm yet to create, where my family will find happiness and sanctuary. Sometimes I dream about home as a place with no neighbours. And by saying so I mean neighbours in geopolitical sense. A life with no fear and anxiety. No threat of war, no need to raise a national awareness which later can become a basis for genocide conducted by the neighbour. And then I feel like there is more truth in fighting for the right to live with a volcano, not people.
But what I really have by now is a limbo. And my conscious is lost in finding the answers. Can returning home make things feel real again? Can I forge a home elsewhere on this planet without regretting my decision to immigrate? Is there truly a safe haven for me, or am I destined to never feel secure anywhere?
I am a broken vase and I need to fix the cracks in aspiration of non- attachment, acceptance of change, and fate.
Kintsugi."
"Project is represented by reflecting on three terms: roots, nostalgia and dreams.
Roots: instax images of my family photo archive from a small village in Kharkiv oblast, Ukraine. Original images are dated around 1950 years.
Nostalgia: screenshots of google maps from the streets where I grew up. Images are colourful illusions of childhood. I was walking up those streets trying to see similar faces and I have found a bunch of them even though being blurred, That is how our memory works, blurring faces but making them recognisable anyway.
Dreams: analog photos of my possible future, there in darkroom I am printing pictures of my house which is not existent yet."
© Olha Lobazova