The resistance of memory, both personal and collective, is very important

What leaves traces in our memory ? A lot of events, stories, people, places or pain and loss…How do these traces affect our outlook and lifestyle?

My Grandmother, who was an eyewitness, often told me about the WWII. One particular story took a special place in her memories. When the village, where my grandmother’s family lived, was on a frontline and was occupied either by Germans or Russians, they were hiding in a basement. Every time the village was occupied by Russians, my grandmother and her sister (born in 1929 and 1927) wore a lot of clothes, they wrapped themselves in kerchiefs and pretended to be old, because of the Russian soldiers who often ran into the basement with the phrase “Where are the girls?”

“Where are the girls?” was imprinted in my memory and clearly shaped my attitude to the history and our neighbor. When footage of the modern Russian-Ukrainian war from Bucha, Irpin or Mariupol terrified the world, I was not surprised, exactly because of this phrase, that was said 90 years ago.

This story, especially, how other people’s memories were deeply imprinted in my memory, made me think about it closely.

The trace that my grandmother’s story left in my memory clearly formed part of my outlook. Perhaps it consists of traces that were left by people, family stories, events, etc.
They can be stored in family chests and wardrobes, in the form of jewerly or Ukrainian embroidery, more often, in family photo albums. Photos preserve the stories we know about and the stories we can only imagine. Very often wedding pictures alternate with funeral ones, vacation pictures alternate with the work trips ones, familiar portraits of grandmother or great-grandfather with portraits of strangers, photos with and without signatures.

This graphic series is dedicated to exactly such “traces”- it was created based on my family photo archive and my particular memories. These traces on paper are like memories – sometimes very contrasting and clear, and sometimes completely unconscious or almost forgotten, like embossing on paper- only outlines were saved – but they matter too.