Palianytsia means bread. In the classical sense, it is a large-sized round wheat bread baked in an oven.
At the start of the war that russia unleashed against Ukraine, the word «palianytsia» became a symbol since russian occupiers cannot pronounce it correctly. It became a shibboleth, distinguishing friend from enemy undoubtedly.
The Transcarpathian inspired the project, where I moved from my native Kyiv after the invasion. The villages there are surrounded and protected by the Carpathians; there are many mountain rivers, the waters of which run fast and polish the stones. Denys Ruban and I began to look more closely at the river stones…
The possibility of working on the project helps to stay sane, because we feel we do everything we can. We donate 100% of the money we receive for these artworks to volunteer organizations and friends who stayed in Kyiv and joined Territorial Defense forces there.
For the first two weeks of the war, it seemed to me that art was a dream, that all twenty years of my professional life were just something I had seen while night dreaming, that art was absolutely powerless and ephemeral in comparison to the merciless military machine destroying peaceful cities and human lives. Now I no longer think so: I see that every artistic gesture makes us visible and makes our voices heard!