NADYA SAYAPINA
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Letter to Mom performance with Viktoriia Vitrenko, exhibition Echoes – Voices from Belarus III, Hospitalkirche, Stuttgart, 2022 // Photo by Lesia Pcholka
Letter to mom, 2021-2024
multimedia project
Letter to Mom is a long-term artistic research project explores forced migration through personal voices and stories. The project gathers testimonies in the form of interviews, photographs, and audiovisual materials, shared by more than 200 participants. It also incorporates workshops and participatory practices, whose outcomes became part of multimedia installations and artworks.
Rooted in the artist’s own migration experience, the project has grown within international programs and collaborations. Letter to Mom forms a multi-layered narrative about displacement, loss, memory, adaptation, and belonging. The project is presented in five cycles, each revealing a different facet of this complex experience.
Letter to mom exhibition, Mala Gallery of Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv , 2021 // Photo by Olexandr Popenko
The first cycle – Letter to mom – began in Ukraine in 2021, based on thirty interviews with Belarusians in exile, taken by the artist. It was presented as a solo exhibition at Mala Gallery of Mystetskyi Arsenal in Kyiv. Each art work addressed a distinct aspect of migrants’ experiences.
The Untitled drawing series (paper, pen, 15×21) focused on anonymity and fear. During the interviews, the artist sketched the respondents’ eyes.
Untitled series, Letter to mom exhibition, Mala Gallery of Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv , 2021 // Photo by Olexandr Popenko
The installation Transparency (mirror / plexiglass, marker) embodied strong feelings of guilt, and the video I (don’t) want to go back (6:21 min, videographer Olexandr Popenko) reflected desire to return.
Transparency installation / Letter to mom exhibition, Mala Gallery of Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv, 2021 // Photo by Olexandr Popenko
Exhibition Echoes – Voices from Belarus II, Karlskaserne, Ludwigburg, 2022 // Photo courtesy of the artist
Letter to mom exhibition, Mala Gallery of Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv , 2021 // Photo by Olexandr Popenko
Displacement means endless losses and searches constantly accompanied by a heap of important and necessary papers. Often, these papers define and hold a person’s future. This is the core theme of the installation and performance Too Many Papers, which forms a significant part of the Letter to Mom project.
Too many papers performance, Letter to mom exhibition, Mala Gallery of Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv, 2021 // Photo by Olexandr Popenko
Too many papers installation and performance, Letter to mom exhibition,CO3, Cologne, 2024 // Photo courtesy of the artist
Workshops and participatory installation I Will Write More Often invited local residents to read migrants’ interviews, collwcted by the atist, and create letters on their behalf, turning individual experiences of adaptation into collective dialogue.
I will write more often installation, Letter to mom exhibition, Mala Gallery of Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv, 2021 // Photos by Olexandr Popenko
Letter to mom project was developed through various international projects.
It was a part of Echoes – Voices from Belarus (2021-2022), which brought together Belarusian artists and ECLAT musicians.
link to the performance with Viktoriia Vitrenko
Too many papers performance with Viktoriia Vitrenko , exhibition Echoes – Voices from Belarus III, Hospitalkirche, Stuttgart, 2022 // video still
The project served as the basis for artist’s lectures at HFBK (University of Fine Arts Hamburg, 2022) and ajoint exhibition with students entitled Letter to_____.
In 2022–2023, the project evolved to include new cycles rooted in deep research, which drew from surveys, interviews, and archival photo and video materials: