Spomyny

Synopsis

Спомини [spomyny] is a Ukrainian word for “memories” or even “memoirs”. The work derives from personal and communal accounts of the recent years of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in the form of sonic artefacts collected by Bulgakova, which presents itself through the installation created out of metres and metres of insulation pipes. Discovering one channel at a time and layering the sounds through the pipes, the audience is invited to unveil a non-linear narrative assembled out of intimate encounters of the artist and her struggles in between being abroad and returning home in the past years, collected testimonies and conversations with friends, family and strangers in Ukraine, found footage recordings through social media and news channel which capture glimpses of extreme experiences within everyday reality. Spomyny, originated from an earlier work by Bulgakova called Sonic Sprawl, using the same physical material, delves deeper into the theme of personalised storytelling and references the source of the insulation tubing, which was found in 2018 at a shipyard in Amsterdam where a lot of men from a Ukrainian community were working at the time.

Statement

I shared my own feelings, observations, and encounters, hoping they’d become something wider. Spomyny holds intimate moments alongside collected voices, letting personal memory sit next to shared experience, so what feels sometimes isolating and singular can be recognised by many.

Credits

Director

Sophia Bulgakova

Production

Studio Sophia Bulgakova (Sophia Bulgakova), iii – Instrument Inventors Initiative (Yolanda Uriz, Jasper van den Berg), Rewire (Bronne Keesmaat), Real Pictures (Regina Maryanovska-Davidzon)

Running Time

20'

Language

English, Ukrainian

Country

The Netherlands, Ukraine

Main Cast

Sophia Bulgakova, Daria Tvoronovich,Ivan Skoryna, Liza Golubova, Diana Remizovska, Ievgen Velychev

Screenplay

Sophia Bulgakova

Sound

Ymer Marinus, Nataliia Avramenko

Technical team

Ymer Marinus, Sophia Bulgakova

With special thanks to

Mondriaan Fund, Sushko Philanthropy, Museum of Civilian Voices by Rinat Akhmetov Foundation