EMIGRATION - IMMIGRATION
Kateryna Goncharova chooses important social and philosophical concepts as the theme of her works - war, emigration, the role of volunteers in society, refugee problems and environmental issues. She recently presented her new work called "Emigration-Immigration". This work is a whole history of symbols and images, where each image, like a book, opens up and tells its own life-long story. Here is what she says about it:
The central figure of my work is a four-legged woman, symbolizing the very concept of emigration - always on her feet, always in motion, always ready to run further. Tomographic images are the very process of emigration - and this is our diagnosis. What kind of person are you? How do you respond to life's trials, grief, loss, and stress? Answer the questions and challenges that fate sets before you and show your true self in the face of adversity.
In the area of the female womb - a symbol of birth and prosperity, I placed a photo of the brilliant Armenian artist and director - Sergei Parajanov. He suffered a lot in his life, he and his work were systematically destroyed by the punitive Soviet machine. A terrible wheel swept through his fate, but he wrote: "I will avenge this world with love." This is all that is left for us so that we do not lose our humanity and the ability to create - to “revenge” this world with our love.
The head of the central black figure is a map of Armenia - since my arrival here, this country has become a huge part of my life path.
The hair of the central figure turns into a refugee girl who drags the shadow of her memory behind her on a rope. Her memory pulls her home and she will probably never be able to get rid of it. And this barefoot woman in a black shawl will be attached all her life to the image of the house in which she lived and the tree that she planted. This is a photo from my archives, and it shows my mother standing under that big tree...
Left side
Right side
The figure sitting back with his head down is the image of a man who has to give up everything right now and run away. He has a black hole in his soul, his life has just cracked. This is symbolized by a black vinyl record with a single song on it - "Home".
Then two figures of the old couple... I always feel sorry for old people, because they have to part with their whole lives - you can only take a memory and a few old photographs with you... Vinyl records attached to their backs are not only a symbol of a wide hole in their souls, but also like a dialogue between these two. I have been looking for special records for this piece at the flea market for a long time.
The stork is a symbol of migration (as well as a bird symbol of Ukraine), it flies away and creates a road in the “from” direction. And people who go out on this road do not know whether they will return or not, whether they will be buried in their homeland or in a foreign land. A man's figure that the stork picks up with its paws is the image of our hearts. We don't want to part with our roots, we just want to grow into the land we love, the land we were born on.
Fragments of handwritten sheets are real fragments of memory, manuscripts of my dreams about the past, about the city that no longer exists ... I pasted my real diaries to these sheets, which I wrote in Ukraine.