In these next 2-3 years, I plan to continue developing Vichna through alternative process experimentation. Using photography, research, and earthly materials, I aim to expand into a more tangible body of work that investigates how cultural memory is reinterpreted and sustained across generations in times of uncertainty.
A specific area I will focus on involves the migration of cultural forms through tangible traditions. I am very interested in examining how motifs and crafts travel across geographic and political boundaries, and over time becoming absorbed into different identities. As a case study, I plan to explore the kilim rug, a textile form with origins traced to the Persian Empire that has become extremely embedded within Ukrainian visual culture. Rather than approaching this history as a fixed narrative of ownership, I am interested in gaining a deeper understanding of cultural exchange, adaptation, and appropriation that allow items to acquire new meanings.
This investigation, currently titled KILIMIAU, will be grounded in material practice. With some training and experimentation in wool processing (from sheep to felt) as well as connections established through work on a sheep croft in Scotland, I have gained access to knowledge, resources, and potential studio environments that support this endeavor. I intend to produce new textile works that reinterpret patterns and textures associated with Ukrainian cultural heritage through contemporary photographic and artistic processes, including cyanotype and image transfer methods. By combining traditional craft with photographic experimentation, I hope to examine how memory becomes embedded within tangible, fibrous material, and how inherited forms can be reimagined through contemporary expression.