Part one of my contribution to the 'Conflict and Fragmentation' exhibition will be the jacket I made from an artwork created about a year ago for my final MA show. The photograph, printed onto fabric, was taken in Rabka-Zdroj, Poland, in June 2023, where I was meeting with the Ukrainian artists from the project I was involved in earlier that year.

The work symbolised collective and ancestral trauma, invisible and yet very powerful and present, affecting the world of today. The grass on the photo grows at the cemetery I have discovered by chance, between the mass graves from Holocaust, hidden in the woods. The emotion I felt there was very powerful, blending personal histories with broader contexts of war, conflict and generational trauma.

I called the original work 'Fabric of reality', printing it on cloth that was weaved thread by thread, just like grass and the cycle of rebirth, as if nature was trying to heal this place, year after year returning to the same place. And yet, the memory of pain remains.

How can we heal the collective pain? Restore the balance and gently move out of the trauma trap?

My current goal is to try and re-interpret the knowledge and wisdom of group healing practices through my own creative approach, on a personal level most of all, but also with the idea to apply practical study on my future projects, bringing the power of art and creativity to the joint effort of healing the broken world.

As we prepare for the exhibition in July, I decide to fragment my most sentimental piece. And then make a new one, despite breaking my right wrist. I ask for help, and then discover the potential for healing within my own physical body when I am inspired to bring the ideas into reality. I use vintage buttons and red thread on the inside of the jacket, symbolic of the main question I was asking at the original show a year ago:

What colour is red?

Fire red? Blood red? Hate red?

Revolution red? Feminine red?

Is reality something we create?

Wearing the jacket before the exhibition to make the story my own, answering 'yes' to the last question. It is. And it is not easy, and yet, possible, to make it beautiful.