By going to the past, you can create the future
By looking back you are actually looking forward
Roksolana Uhryniuk
artist
My art emerges from silence and observation — from the ability to capture what might otherwise remain unseen. I draw attention to the overlooked: everyday gestures, materials, and rituals that carry echoes of the past. My works are not intended to entertain; they are created to focus the viewer’s attention, pulling them into a dialogue with what hurts but has long become part of the background.
I explore how personal experience intersects with collective memory, how subtle gestures, domestic actions, or words can embody traces of trauma. My approach resembles therapeutic practice: I point to the wound, allowing each viewer to experience their own encounter with it. Through performance, video, drawing, ready-made, and installation, I construct spaces that position the audience as participants — withholding answers, but opening the possibility of rethinking.
After emigrating to Canada, my practice has taken on new dimensions — themes of adaptation, alienation, and the loss of connection to one’s context emerged. This is not only a Ukrainian experience, but also a universal one: the condition of being “a stranger among one’s own,” misunderstood — and sometimes deliberately left unheard. I trust that only by facing and inhabiting the past can we create a future of our own making — one that is genuine, not imposed. To look back is, in fact, to look forward.
Today, I speak about Ukraine not only in the context of war, but as part of a global landscape of trauma, transformation, and healing. I am interested in how art can create contemporary amulets — objects and meanings that provide a sense of safety, regardless of culture or borders.
My artistic language was shaped in Ukraine, and I remain deeply rooted in its artistic context. It is important for me to address the war in Ukraine, while also engaging in a broader dialogue about loss, continuity, memory, and survival. Pain and transformation have universal resonances — one only needs to learn how to listen.