"Homin"
Fedora Akimova
Artists At Risk
July – August 2022
Personal Exhibition
Personal Exhibition
Curator: Masha Kriuchkova
The Homin exhibition by Akimova, curated by Masha Kriuchkova at the Ria Keburia Foundation, reflects on war through themes of memory, the loss of home, and the shared experience of death. Described by Ria Keburia as a cosmopolitan artist caught between two battles – her native roots and the country of her former residence – Akimova says:
“Homin is translated from Ukrainian as ‘hum’ or ‘noise.’ This word has a direct meaning: war constantly makes people experience horror through sound. Air raids, explosions, crying and screaming – all this merges into a homin, and turns into a sound chimera. But there is another layer to the name, which resonates with the exhibition space. It’s about the hum of silence. When people are dead, that buzz doesn't go anywhere. This silence is the most terrible hum.”
After the world had dramatically changed due to the events in Ukraine, the visual artist started looking for a new artistic language. The Homin project consists of three parts: the land-art object Chapel, the art installation Homin, and the Black Room.
The Chapel was constructed from fragments of furniture andreferred to the well-known photograph of a kitchen cabinet that miraculously remained intact on the wall of a house destroyed by a Russian bomb in Borodyanka. Akimova collected pieces of wooden furniture, assembling them into a chapel façade, creating a monument to both the architecture of destruction and the afterlife of devastation.
In the main exhibition space, Akimova presented the installation Homin – a series of triangular structures resembling simple roof shapes. Their rhythmic repetition recalls documentary photographs of military graves. Glass objects in this installation are readymade items from a village near Irpin, once owned by civilians but transformed by the war. Melted by explosions and stripped of their function and familiar forms, these objects evoke deeply personal histories.
In the Black Room, the focus shifts to post-traumatic memory, characterized by fragmented recollections or the loss of certain events or periods. The exhibition’s fragmented and scattered presentation includes icon cases that echo the traditional form of icons.
The Homin exhibition by Akimova, curated by Masha Kriuchkova at the Ria Keburia Foundation, reflects on war through themes of memory, the loss of home, and the shared experience of death. Described by Ria Keburia as a cosmopolitan artist caught between two battles – her native roots and the country of her former residence – Akimova says:
“Homin is translated from Ukrainian as ‘hum’ or ‘noise.’ This word has a direct meaning: war constantly makes people experience horror through sound. Air raids, explosions, crying and screaming – all this merges into a homin, and turns into a sound chimera. But there is another layer to the name, which resonates with the exhibition space. It’s about the hum of silence. When people are dead, that buzz doesn't go anywhere. This silence is the most terrible hum.”
After the world had dramatically changed due to the events in Ukraine, the visual artist started looking for a new artistic language. The Homin project consists of three parts: the land-art object Chapel, the art installation Homin, and the Black Room.
The Chapel was constructed from fragments of furniture andreferred to the well-known photograph of a kitchen cabinet that miraculously remained intact on the wall of a house destroyed by a Russian bomb in Borodyanka. Akimova collected pieces of wooden furniture, assembling them into a chapel façade, creating a monument to both the architecture of destruction and the afterlife of devastation.
In the main exhibition space, Akimova presented the installation Homin – a series of triangular structures resembling simple roof shapes. Their rhythmic repetition recalls documentary photographs of military graves. Glass objects in this installation are readymade items from a village near Irpin, once owned by civilians but transformed by the war. Melted by explosions and stripped of their function and familiar forms, these objects evoke deeply personal histories.
In the Black Room, the focus shifts to post-traumatic memory, characterized by fragmented recollections or the loss of certain events or periods. The exhibition’s fragmented and scattered presentation includes icon cases that echo the traditional form of icons.
