Creative project We build Crimea

The Mission of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea together with the Ministry of Reconstruction of Ukraine presented the platform “We are building Crimea”, which will tell about projects and businesses that will contribute to the restoration and development of entrepreneurship in Crimea, at the third Summit of the Crimea Platform, which took place on August 23 and was attended by 63 representatives of different countries and international organizations.

The key element of the creative project, which became part of the We Build Crimea initiative, was bricks that symbolize the contribution of every Ukrainian to the common cause of rebuilding Ukraine. It was intended to draw the attention of international partners and the public to the importance of Crimea and its restoration, as well as to speed up the process of de-occupation of our territories.

As part of this initiative, for the third Summit of the Crimea Platform, artists, each with their own “Crimean” experience, decorated 8 bricks, which thus gained their own semantic and artistic history.

In particular, one of the bricks was designed by Ukrainian feminist artist, performance artist, media artist and curator Alevtina Kakhidze. She titled her work “Brick. Tola”, because “tola” was the first Crimean Tatar word that the artist learned, which translates to “brick”. Ms. Kakhidze’s work tells about the problem of preserving the identity of Crimean Tatars under occupation.

Crimean Tatar artist, ceramist, Honored Master of Folk Art of Ukraine Rustem Skybin also became part of the We Build Crimea initiative with a work titled “Connection”. The artist’s work tells about “a common history, a common land on which the Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar peoples were formed.” 

Volodymyr Kuznetsov, an artist who has participated in many solo and group exhibitions in Ukraine and abroad, and who also joins many human rights projects, depicted the texts of children’s lullabies on the bricks, which embody maternal and paternal wishes for peace, health, and goodness, as “spells.” In this way, we are also making a “spell” for the future of Crimea.

The artist Zirka Savka turned the brick into an installation by painting it in the “colors of the Crimean sky.” “My friend, a Crimean Tatar, told me what color the sky is in Crimea. I haven’t seen it in real life yet, but I can definitely find it on my palette,” the artist said about her work.

Children’s book illustrator and artist Oleksandra Andriusiak also took part in “We build Crimea” with her work “The bad weather will pass”, which depicts a Ukrainian woman and a Crimean Tatar woman who jointly oppose the occupation of Crimea. They embrace a trident that blooms atop a “tree of life” inspired by Ornek ornamentation. This is a work about the unity of the Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar peoples, about their struggle against the occupiers.

One of the bricks was decorated with burnt ears of wheat, laid out in mosaic by the artist and founder of the mosaic studio Tiana Studio, Tetiana Rodkina. The work reminds the viewer of the burnt bread theme, which has been a characteristic of Ukrainians for several generations. On the one hand, it alludes to the Holodomor of 1932-1933, and on the other hand, to the last year and a half with the burned wheat fields, the theft of hundreds of tons of grain, and the shelling of grain infrastructure by the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine. 

Street artist Andriy Kalkov joined the initiative. The artist reproduced a fragment of the mural he painted on a building at Urban Camp Lviv, thus consciously or unconsciously appealing to the motif of Ukraine’s unity – from east to west and from north to south. Andriy believes that similar art objects will appear on the buildings of a free Crimea alongside the national flags of Ukraine.

One of the bricks was dedicated to the Crimean resistance and was made by members of the Crimean underground who had moved to mainland Ukraine. “Swallows and seagulls are the birds that first come to mind when you think of Crimea. Swallows are birds that always return to their land.  The Crimean Tatar people are like those swallows: despite deportation, despite persecution and other atrocities, they found their way home. Now they are forced to continue this path of struggle again. However, despite everything, each swallow will certainly fly back to its native land. Seagulls are birds that contemplate the blue of the Black Sea from above. They know every corner of the Crimean Mountains and all the paths of the endless steppe. These birds symbolize everyone who is fighting to return to their homes, trails, steppe, mountains, sea, and sun,” the authors write. The bricks had cracks “left behind by the enemy.” However, the authors of the work put it together as a symbol of rebirth for all swallows and seagulls.

Each of the bricks became a part of the installation within the framework of the Third Summit of the International Crimea Platform. The distinguished guests of the event had the opportunity to see it. But this is not the end of their journey. On the contrary, after the liberation of the occupied territories, the bricks will become part of new infrastructure facilities in the liberated Crimea.