Δia Kinets
About project
The Δia Kinets project is based on slides found in school №18 in Chernihiv (Ukraine). This school was destroyed by a Russian missile on March 3, 2022. Project curator Eva Holts studied at this school. Therefore, she dared to go to her native school to observe the changes that had happened to this place. There she found a lot of Soviet diapositives – diafilms. Until 1991, these materials were used during lessons as an illustrative component. But also for regime propaganda (especially films on the history of the USSR and Russian literature). This kind of find is a difficult task for a comprehensive reflection of the role of objects (films) over a long period of time. However, it is quite possible if these objects fall into the hands of artists who experience these changes (because they themselves change during the war).
From the author:
From childhood, my father instilled in me a love for nature, its preservation, and protection. His entire life has been dedicated to teaching biology, and he passed on his knowledge and passion to me.
Upon handling the diapositives, I noticed that they were fragmented and mixed, resembling the scattered knowledge of the school curriculum, where diapositives were used, in adult life. These diapositives, like the acquired knowledge, have been subjected to the passage of time and life’s twists, leading to their distortion and the current state and form in which they exist. Through my works, I invite the viewer to reflect on the theme of the interaction between time and knowledge, acknowledging the gaps in knowledge that lose relevance and dissipate over time.
This motivated my decision to depict the diapositives with continuity on the scanner, focusing on the aspect of the temporal dynamics of these materials. This approach is perceived as an attempt to capture the elusive nature of time and its influence on our understanding of the world.
Music:
Ukrainian composer Maksym Kornilov was also involved in the Δia Kinets project. He wrote a composition dedicated to my works and added his detailed comment:
“Tempo 60. Dimensionality 5/4. If you take 12 times of 5 seconds, you get a minute. To tell the story in such a short period of time, I imagined that a minute is like a year, the first of five of which is the purest and is associated with memories of your father, how he taught you biology and nature protection. I also did a bit of research on your personal page and saw work using the cyanotype method where the image is blue due to a chemical element. The caption speaks of time as it splits apart after the sound of the camera shutter, and moments live their own lives, separate from the relentless present and unknown future. In the description of the slide film, you said that memories and experiences fade over time, become more abstract, like school knowledge of some subjects. I emphasized it with an imposed distortion, which becomes more and more visible with the “years”, and the years themselves are buried deep in the theory of music, in order to convey the subtle feelings of this blurring, strangeness, even lostness. Something similar to dementia. Everything is accompanied by additional effects that I recorded on a stereo microphone in Lisbon (at the beginning there is the sound of empty flagpoles, and at the end the same sound is reversed, so it’s like we come to the beginning; maybe this is a reference to reincarnation).”