The rushnyk is a thread that stitches through the entire life of a Ukrainian. It’s used to swaddle a newborn and to cover the final path in death. It is a fabric that witnesses birth and passing. In this work, my family’s rushnyks, over 100 years old, do not just wrap me—they bind and cover me.
This is the physical sensation of history’s weight and, simultaneously, its embrace. I am bound by these threads to the past, covered from the unknown future. It is an attempt to feel myself at the intersection of all paths. The rushnyks behind me are the souls of my ancestors, whose hands touched this very cloth. It is a moment of being both protected and constrained by lineage, frozen in vulnerability and unity with the infinite cycle of being.
After the full-scale invasion began, I started a new project Roots. If in the previous project I research myself, in the new project I use my body as a tool to tell about the war, Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian identity.
keefsnfts
