Elena Khomiakova (UKR)

Our life have changed rapidly over the past year. People are faced with a threat cannot be understood with their current experience and knowledge. Nature’s challenge has shown us how vulnerable modern humanity and civilization are to uncharted biological life. We started a battle with an enemy we knew nothing about. 365 days have passed, masks and lockdowns have become commonplace. We have changed and we continue to fight.

Projects and art exhibitions dedicated to global problems, such as the coronovirus pandemic, are extremely important.

They help to reflect, collect and express the experience of artists who survived, like the other people, who have experienced with coronavirus and self-isolation. The art created in this period reflects the uniqueness and drama of the past year and need it to be shown. For me, participating in such a project like #365daysafter is an opportunity to express my feelings, my observations and my understanding of the problem. Since I’ve been through the disease, I think it’s important to support and draw attention to people who have lost loved ones, suffering from the virus, struggling with the pandemic, doctors, and everyone in the world who have lived and are going through a difficult period with the pandemic. And art can be such an expressive and vivid way of supporting.

365 Pandemic Days For me, the pandemic began with my work «Posthuman being» that I did during the lead up to the first lockdown in the spring of 2020. In this work, I reflected about how our bodies interact with micro-organisms and viruses from our environment. In those days I could not imagine we all would soon experience this complex interaction, more like a war with an unknown enemy. I conceived this work with knowing nothing of the pandemic yet.

The news of the coronavirus, spread through Europe and America, seemed to me distant and implausible. I’ve always been concerned with the subject of human vulnerability in a vast open world. I believe with all the progress of civilization and science we have, we are unprotected against the invisible biological life. In my work I showed the space filled with objects and life forms, among which a human being exists. The inextricable and complicated processes unite us with them. In the future, people will learn how to feel and understand these invisible microworlds, how to live together in harmony, or at least to conclude a truce.

Or perhaps, we’ll have to survive in the cold space alone? This my work was shown at the large-scale exhibition “Manifesto 2020”, dedicated to environmental and ecological problems, in the “Lavra” gallery, Kiev, in the spring of 2020. There were a lot of people at the opening and we all had lot of carefree socializing. And the day after, the first lockdown was declared: the stores closed, public transportation and the subway stopped, and we all plunged into a prolonged anxiety and self-isolation. Life changed rapidly in those days.

It seemed like thise whole things couldn’t last long. But my life as an artist has remained almost unchanged. I work in my workshop, I spend almost all my time in it – I just mind and sketch my ideas, paint big artworks, it looks like a permanent self-isolation for me. The workshop is close to my house and every day after a 20-minute walk,

I went to my art world to escape the frightening news and events.

As I immersed myself in the work in my studio, I was distracted from anxious thoughts about how to live my life, where the world was headed, and how to make antiseptics out of tools. It’s been 365 days with a mask on my face. We’re used to online exhibitions and meetings in ZOOM. But the process of my work remains the same- you have to take an idea, cut out the excess and make it happen in reality. And when you get to realize what you want, you can see your work complete and clearly expressed in colors, you feel an extraordinary joy and satisfaction. It’s like your finished job gives you an integrity, self-sufficiency and courage. And for me, this is the work of an artist – the birth of meaning in a perfect form.