nativ|al #79

2022

Recycled plastic/Found object

My grandfather from a Belarusian family, who moved to Kuibyshev city. In March 1945, at the age of 18, he was drafted to the front, where he served as a bomber pilot until the end of the war, evacuating many wounded. Afterwards he got married, settled down with his family in Nikolaev in southern Ukraine. There, my uncle and father — his sons remained. My aunt and then I and my family moved to Sevastopol and after the events of 2014, we ended up in Russia. Now, contact with relatives on the other side of the border is especially difficult: due to both objective reasons and ideological differences with my parents. Almost all the family archive remained there: the photographs of the grandfather, great-grandparents and great-grandmothers. Their letters and some personal items.

I am very sorry that when my grandfather was still alive, I was too young and do not remember his stories about the past well. Now it is especially difficult to collect this information: my uncle and his wife send scans of photos, letters. But I have no material artifacts. And I am very afraid that they may be lost forever. And I don’t believe in the long-term preservation of their digital copies. 

I found this birch trunk in the Belarusian forest and brought it to Russia. Just as my grandfather and his family ended up here from Belarus. From this tree, devoid of roots and removed from the native forest, 'digital' (printed on a 3D printer from recycled plastic bottles found in the urban environment) mushrooms with hats in the shape of satellite antennas for data transmission are sprouting. 

 It was not easy for me to achieve print imperfections: defects, glitches, surface texture. Because digitizing material objects already deprives them of reality. And even if they are printed again afterwards, they will not replace the original.