interregnum
Each time I entered the Donbas warzone, I felt a transition to a different state of mind. There was a feeling that the past, the future, and the whole life are becoming weightless. This wasn’t fear. This was emptiness. When I discussed this feeling with soldiers, I learned that this feeling was also familiar to them. Everyone feels this transition.
The “Interregnum” is my research, based on my own experience, feelings, and empathy. “Interregnum” is a Latin word. “Inter” - “between” and “regnum” - “kingdom, rule”. I chose this word to describe the vacuum of political power that exists between the lines. With my works, I’m appealing to the natural subconscious archetypes of fear, loneliness, emptiness, heaviness, and emotional vacuum. I aim to show the absurdity of war, but restraining myself from appeals to human sympathy. I believe there’s hardly any in a war.
I use b&w film to remove any feeling of time and avoid any unneeded distraction that colours might provoke. An old expired film is used to stress the fact that any war is, first of all, a defect of civilization. It carries nothing but a self-destruction.
No one knows when and how the war will end.
