72 kg, 2026

oil on canvas, wood

Museum of Nomad began in 2022, when I was forced to leave Kyiv and relocate to Vilnius because of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. It is a museum of a nomad artist, born out of that displacement, where most of the exhibits are made by hand. It has no permanent building, no fixed address. What it has is a logic: the logic of accumulation, preserving and meaning-making at the edge of loss and acquisition. The project explores mechanisms of preserving memory and loss within material objects: everyday items that lose their original function due to displacement, and become carriers of personal and collective experience. Painting 72 kg enacts the idea of the museum literally. The painting is not stretched on a frame — it exists as a scroll-like object. It can be rolled, carried, moved — tucked under one arm and taken away. Since the beginning of the war, I gradually transported part of my personal library from Kyiv to Vilnius. In total, 72 kilograms. But the weight is almost beside the point. What matters is the tactility of a hard or soft cover, the texture of paper under my fingers, the ammonia smell of an old book. The ritual. The sensory memory. The silhouette of the books reads like a city skyline — but an unclear one, a city I can’t quite place. I don’t know where home is anymore. I oscillate between two cities, and this skyline belongs to neither and both. The work becomes what it depicts: a portable archive, a museum that fits into transit. The work is part of my Museum of Nomad project. Its inventory card is attached as separate image in the additional photos section.