My grandmother collected porcelain. By the time she was my age, she already had children. Sometimes her dormitory neighbors looked after them while she was at work. She worked as an engineer. For her dedicated work, she and my grandfather were given a three-room apartment in Donetsk. My grandmother filled the apartment with beautiful things: lacquered furniture, amber pictures, crystal vases, and porcelain figurines. She shows me a photo: a Kazakh man and woman, a Polish man and woman, a Ukrainian man and woman — they all remain on the shelf in Donetsk.

Now, I have my own collection of porcelain figurines:

The porcelain family

The Young Woman Who Feeds The Bird

My great-grandmother was an orphan. She wanted to build a strong family. I am told she was cheerful and loved gathering everyone around the table. And that we are grateful to her for that.

The Angel

My mother died when I was two. It was an accident. I have always heard only good things about her: she kept the house tidy, loved children, and was beautiful. She also cooked scrambled eggs with tomatoes and onions. Other than that, I know very little about my mother.

The Young Woman With The Flower

The young woman with the flower is the angel's mother. I used to wake up at five in the morning to the sound of her prayers for all the living and the dead.

The Runner

As a child, I tried to understand whether my father thought about my mother when he rested his hands on his face. At some point, he started running and even received a medal for running from Lviv to SievierodonetskSiverskodonetsk (until 2024 — Sievierodonetsk) is a city in the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine. It has been occupied by Russia since June 2022.. I often joke that he said no more than five hundred words to me in his entire life.

The Tired

My other grandmother was a foundry worker. She was a strong and cheerful woman, but she sighed a lot.

The Parachutist

My grandfather was a parachutist. I often recall a phrase I saw in one of his letters: "Better to fall on your belly, rather than let your spirits fall."

In our family, it was not common to share stories and memories. I collect fragments of memories that I have been fortunate enough to hear and use them to create images — my porcelain figurines. Probably, like my grandmother's, my collection is born out of scarcity.

I show them because I love them very much. I place them on the shelves of my memory, sometimes wipe the dust off them, and add details. But what kind of relationship can one have with porcelain?

The Living and the Deceased

The Angel's Family

The Young Woman Who Feeds The Bird