The idea to develop a series of drawings loosely structured like diary entries came to me one evening when I found myself in the turbulent masses of Kiev’s streets and saw a gigantic eye – or a person dressed up as an eye. I then produced my first drawings for the Kiev Diary and began keeping my regular, diary-like records of the events taking place in the country. Obviously, there was no time to develop a self-contained system: the situation kept changing so rapidly, I myself was taking part in what was going on, the information was ambiguous, and I felt that this was the only form that was appropriate as it enabled me to respond to everything immediately. And anyway, it is extremely important to record all the events as they happen – to capture them before time alters them beyond recognition.
Aside from keeping a record of the events of the Ukrainian revolution, I also chronicle personal and external reflections, myths, fears and hopes surrounding the events in my “diary”.
My thoughts on the nature of the events, which had their beginnings in local protests, automatically turned into thoughts about people’s fundamental traits; about how views, actions and endeavors otherwise irrelevant in their everyday lives can, in critical circumstances, either morph into a heroism bordering on holiness or something criminal. Time is sort of condensed and sped up, and the idea of its concentrated and compressed flow in a clearly defined space makes me think of developer in analog photography. I feel like I am only making sketches in my work and that the “bath” of our current history will develop them into a sharper image.
Also selected for the project at the daadgalerie were my drawings with animal costumes: an important subject throughout the diary because, first of all, these are records of real people who were wearing special photo costumes and did not leave Independence Square (Maidan) even when clashes broke out. Second, there have been many people in Ukraine’s distant and recent history who have slipped into strange costumes time and again: police officers have dressed up as normal citizens, crooks have masqueraded in the uniforms of the people’s militia on Independence Square, etc. Third, in the moments when the worst atrocities take place, there is always a man symbolically dressed as an animal. In the drawings, the “black” motif crops up repeatedly in connection with the sea, soil and oil. By partially submerging a human figure in this black, I wanted to direct the viewer’s attention to death. In view of the current events in Ukraine, the presence of death, a subject that is otherwise almost completely suppressed, has been thrust into public prominence. The drawing depicting the double-headed Russian eagle – the symbol of the Russian empire – in the form of a chicken stuffed in the English fashion alludes to the annexation of Crimea and the potential consequences of this crime. On the same page, I reference Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s drawing from The Little Prince in which a snake after it has eaten an elephant. (Vlada Ralko)