As a result of the residency, the exhibition “Kryvyi Landscape. Rooting” opened in the shelter of DUET University (2 Zakhysnykiv Square).

Roots — a concept and an image that have gained extraordinary weight today. A quarter of the new century has already passed, a period in which the development of public thought and sentiment offered hope for a reduction of interpersonal aggression and articulated a demand for ecological relationships, awareness of diversity, inclusion, and solidarity. Millions of Ukrainian citizens took to the squares, recognizing freedom and democracy as values rooted deeply within themselves. Russia’s war is aimed at the radical destruction of all this. Among its practices is urbicide — the targeted destruction of cities as environments for the formation and development of modern worldviews, cultural exchange, and identities beyond unification.
Turning to one’s roots in these realities is a natural and creative process. We seek to understand what it is that others are trying to uproot us from. And in this desire, we rediscover ourselves, our families, our cities anew. Rooting becomes a strategy of resistance, an affirmation of existence.
The textile works and installation by Yeva Alvor are united by plant imagery and the title “Rooting.”“Growing into what is one’s own, one’s native. These metaphorical roots, like a nervous system, penetrate all internal organs. Rooting as a desire to belong in one’s own home, on one’s own street, in one’s own city. Our roots are torn so painfully, ripping away pieces of a living heart and leaving them here, in the native land that gave birth to us. Ukraine has made us share a common root,” says the artist.
For her, the landscape of Kryvyi Rih is multi-layered: geological, historical, natural strata — explored and unknown, pronounced or worn away — through which life breaks through.
“Something extremely dark, covered in soot and gloom — impossible to excavate — only conjectures and legends. Something rusted over due to the desire to forget and erase these pages from life and history. And this layer smells of metal, a smell that evokes chilling associations with an open wound. Here is a layer of visual noise: shop signs, advertisements, graffiti on walls — these too are the voices of the city. I peer into it like a distorted mirror: what do I want to see there? The true face of the city, or perhaps my own?”
Asya Yakovlieva deconstructs the state of lullaby-like stagnation and the self-reproduction of everyday life to which Kryvyi Rih — like other post-industrial cities — is condemned by the consumerist attitudes of authorities and business.“In Kryvyi Rih, it’s all the same” — a phrase the artist heard during the residency — became the title of her object. A symmetrical composition of two basalt stones found in the shale cliffs of Kryvyi Rih, decorated with pink and white textile elements, uses the contrast of materials to reveal the impossibility of solving life and urban issues through superficial improvements. The stones depict mouths that swallow legs — an ouroboros of escaping responsibility.
“Being in the city evoked a sense of emotional and energetic tension — like standing at the epicenter, in the mouth of a volcano. Kryvyi Rih appears to me as a point of maximum compression, a place of exposed truth about humanity and the world, where the very mechanism of reality becomes visible. The city is perceived as a concentrate of historical layers of violence — imperial, totalitarian, post-totalitarian — but without genuine transformation, only with the same taste altered. In this sense, Kryvyi Rih acts as a universal model of contemporary human existence,” says Asya Yakovlieva.
The sculpture “Tumbleweed” by Vitalii Kravets was created in collaboration with Kryvyi Rih blacksmiths using construction rebar of varying diameters. In the artist’s practice, it continues a line of commemorating the experience of the ongoing war. The work is dedicated to internally displaced people, for many of whom Kryvyi Rih has become a refuge. Migrations, deportations, and resettlements — consequences of colonialism — have shaped Kryvbas. Their geography is dizzying. Thus, in Kryvyi Rih, the last monarch of Khwarezm, Said Abdullah Khan, died in exile during the Holodomor. He and his relatives are buried in this land in unmarked graves.
“Tumbleweed is the most precise metaphor for detachment from home. This plant literally has no roots. This wandering bush has, unfortunately, become an image in which many Ukrainians can recognize themselves today. Destroyed architectural structures, deformed rusty metal, shattered concrete. Ruined architecture is not merely a heap of scrap, but also a source of new visual images,” shares Vitalii Kravets.
As it moves across a desert landscape, a tumbleweed disperses seeds from which new plants grow. This species includes the Jericho rose, which can remain dormant for years, like a dried-up ball, yet when placed in water, unfolds again into an enchanting flower. In the same way, Ukrainians torn from their familiar soil preserve their spirit, their memory, and their will to freedom. And all of this will continue to grow.
Kostiantyn DoroshenkoProject Curator

Video from the project opening

Photographers: Anna Balvas, Kateryna Petinova, Viktor Boiko

Video from the Artist Talk