Daria Molokoiedova

Wreath, 2024

A wreath in Ukrainian culture is traditionally considered a reflection of a girl’s soul and her emotional state. What flowers are woven into it, what color and sequence they are in. The wreath protects the head of an unmarried girl. The dangerous sharp glass begins to protect. The silent transparent material begins to speak to you.

The inspiration for the work was my childhood photo in a wreath of artificial large daisies.

My brother is 15 and a football player, 2023

The work was created together with Mykyta Boyko, a teenage migrant from Graz, Austria.

For me, this work is an attempt to understand the feelings of a teenager who finds himself in conditions of war. By projecting my own childhood experience, I recreate the idea that everything around us is a Masonic conspiracy, and we balance in it, as if we are stones in a harmony of stones. We have soccer and chess and we will still make our move with the knight.  The impetus and inspiration for me was my younger brother Bohdan (First draft title “My brother is 15 and plays chess and football”).

Papa – Bear, 2021

The work was created in 2021, after I stole a photo of my little dad from my grandmother’s album.

This is a story about the relationship between parents and children. About what the father figure is, what is behind it, or who is behind it. It’s about meeting and getting to know the child who is my dad.

Entrance Strictly to Donbas, 2022 (video-art)

The work “Entrance Strictly to Donbas” was created as a video look at a walk through the facts about my family, myself and my native region and home, the boundaries of which will be redefined with new answers.

Statement

Recently, I crossed the border of Ukraine for the second time since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. And this time, 2 years after February 24, I was confronted with the feeling I had when I was 12 years old, when the occupation of the cities of Donetsk region began in 2014. It was a feeling of not being able to realize it, but understanding why it was happening to me. A paradox in my head, which, in my opinion, is inherent in children because of their sincerity and naivety. It probably happened now, after all these years, because I started working on the topic of childhood. And I’m like a child, only now I realized how the war has soaked up such a part of life as becoming a child and transitioning from a child to a teenager, from a teenager to a young person; and perhaps further, from a young person to an adult, from an adult to an old person, and from an old person to death itself. In our time, I want to hope for this outcome.

I think that now, more than ever, it is important for every Ukrainian to fill his or her life with harmony and balance, to look for sources of energy for this and to be able to ask others for help. To learn to balance between sadness for a possible peaceful reality and everyday disasters. To feel yourself in your own body, to keep your toes firmly on the ground. Take care of yourself and your family, and wait it out, because the storm will pass.