I Just Want Silence

An installation of 5 gestures: sound, video, personal belongings, graphic works (paper, pencil, liner, acrylic), interactive album | Сreated especially for the exhibition Sense of Safety / 2024

The basis of Kateryna Yermolayeva's creative method is the transformation of deeply personal experience combined with the observation of the experience of others. Intertwined together, these experiences turn into an artistic statement that viewers often perceive as addressed to them. Yermolaieva began her artistic practice as a graffiti artist under the pseudonym Mikhalych, which allowed her to create characters with their own behavioral scenarios, which at some point began to live their own lives. Due to its uncertainty and anonymity, the game of subpersonality seems to secure a comfortable psychological space for the artist, who often defines herself through another.

This game continues in a series of 5 subtle gestures scattered around the Yermilov Center, in which the artist intertwines childhood memories, superstitions, and rituals with today's sense of security, which is certainly superimposed on the feeling of losing home since 2014. These gestures are reminiscent of childhood rituals, such as knocking on the door with the grandmother, a confidential code that could be used to recognize loved ones, rustling in the dark as a sign of someone's presence in a secluded place, or as a child, watching a video in a cardboard box trying to hide under a blanket. Darkness is associated with the possibility of rescue, the desire to be unnoticed in a difficult situation, both in childhood and during curfews. These memories are intertwined with the current traumatic situation of not being able to get home. However, it is the home, even if it is temporary, that is extended to personal things, such as the mother's clothes, which become a ritual of relaxation and self-soothing in the midst of the unknown.

Such experiences and rituals affect each and every one of us. The artist invites the audience to create a joint album in which they can share their thoughts and record their own experiences through stories of any tone. This joint creative process may help to imagine a safe place together, at least for a while.