During my stay at the AIR - ARTIST IN RESIDENCE, I would like to work on the novel called "By the Roads and Yards". This is a memoir of a woman who lost everything because of the war and is trying to survive far from her homeland, without the possibility of communicating with her family, friends because the land where she was born and the places where she spent her childhood are occupied by the invaders. As a child, this woman spent her childhood in a picturesque village in the eastern part of Ukraine, absorbing all the diversity and beauty of the living language and folk culture, encountering various manifestations of mercy and cruelty, wild superstition and wise enlightenment. Every step this woman takes in another life outside of her homeland as a test, in the midst of trying to stay afloat, she subconsciously catches sudden sounds, smells, fragments of phrases that lead her down memory lane to certain moments from her poor rural childhood. Those moments once seemed unimportant, accidental, but even then they predicted the future, and if only she could turn back time and stay in those warm moments a bit longer. Where will these adjacent, intertwined paths of search and recollection lead to? This will be the subject of the novel.

Citizenship: Ukraine
Residence: July - September 2024