{"id":13106,"date":"2025-08-20T14:25:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T11:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pastfutureart.org\/in-memoriam-of-us-all\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T19:07:34","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T16:07:34","slug":"in-memoriam-of-us-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastfutureart.org\/en\/in-memoriam-of-us-all\/","title":{"rendered":"In Memoriam of Us All: Vitaliy Kokhan\u2019s war memory art intervention in Kharkiv"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
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In Memoriam of Us All: Vitaliy Kokhan\u2019s war memory art intervention in Kharkiv<\/h1>\r\n <\/div>\r\n
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In the summer of 2025, an art object documenting the experience of wartime life in Ukraine appeared in North Saltivka: <\/b>In Memoriam of Us All,<\/i><\/b> Vitaliy Kokhan\u2019s art intervention in the city\u2019s public space, carried out in partnership with the Past \/ Future \/ Art memory culture platform.<\/b><\/p>\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n<\/section>\r\n\r\n\n\n\r\n

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The facade of School No. 165 became a canvas for messages, reading: \u201cThis wall witnesses the horrors of war since February 24, 2022\u201d; \u201cMordor\u201435 km\u201d; \u201cF-16\u201d; \u201cSome didn\u2019t leave\u201d \u2014 as well as images of everyday objects from the wartime reality: a car, a cat, a trident, a diode, a fruit dish, a gun. With his graffiti-referencing work, artist Vitaliy Kokhan documented the wartime experiences of Ukraine, his own thoughts, and the memories of locals. The artist created images and inscriptions in self-invented lettering by breaking square mosaic tiles off the facade of the damaged building. As if tattooed on the school\u2019s walls are the pictures and messages that form a composition with all the traces of destruction. These messages aim to communicate with the local community and foster dialogue about and reflection on the present and the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kharkiv\u2019s first discussions on memorialization took place precisely in North Saltivka in 2022. The neighborhood is a mere 30 km away from the Russian border, and in 2022, the Russian army was two kilometers short of approaching the school, where the line of defense lay. None of Saltivka\u2019s 120 apartment blocks was left unscathed, and attacks on the neighborhood continue even now. Some of the buildings undergo repairs, while others await demolition.<\/span><\/p>\n

Having spoken with locals and visited Saltivka on multiple occasions, Vitaliy Kokhan, who searched for a site for his intervention-to-be, decided to go with School No. 165, which the Russians hit with their shelling. The school, pummeled by many Russian attacks, will eventually be renovated. For the duration of martial law, children study remotely, and ten staff members care for the building.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMemorialization through street art may be considered a temporary or situational approach to working with memory. Partially abandoned and lifeless, Saltivka\u2019s mutilated structures yearn for new meaning, and graffiti is an excellent way of breathing life into silent facades, as I see it,\u201d<\/span><\/i> Vitalii Kokhan commented. <\/span>\u201cEspecially significant is the technique: breaking the mosaic tiles off the wall panels. I spotted it in Kharkiv 10 years ago, and it struck me as something special. This visual language is reminiscent of the doodles often seen in graph notebooks as well as the patterns in Ukrainian embroidery and textiles. It\u2019s pretty much tattoos on buildings.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Curator Kateryna Semenyuk, a co-founder of the Past \/ Future \/ Art memory culture platform, recalled that the idea emerged during the <\/span>Memorialization Practices Lab<\/span><\/a> expeditions to North Saltivka in 2024, but had since evolved and transformed: <\/span>\u201cAt the time, we took artists and architects on a quest to find a memorialization language for Kharkiv in response to locals\u2019 demands. Saltivka residents didn\u2019t want to conserve the destruction or perpetuate the victimhood messaging. Instead, they saw rebuilding the neighborhood and keeping the city alive as a matter of first importance. With this in mind, we teamed up with Vitaliy Kokhan to carry out a project devoid of overbearing monumental forms and eventually arrived at the idea of a temporary intervention, which resonated with many locals.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The works can be seen on the grounds of School No. 165 at <\/span>7 Metrobudnykiv St<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/div>\r\n \r\n \r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n\r\n<\/section>\r\n\r\n\n\n\r\n

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ABOUT THE ARTIST<\/h2>\r\n <\/div>\r\n
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Vitaliy Kokhan<\/b> was born in Sumy in 1987 and studied at D.\u00a0S. Bortnianskyi Sumy Professional College of Arts and Culture and the monumental arts section of Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts. He is a permanent participant and curator of Borderland Space (<\/span>\u00ab\u041f\u0440\u043e\u0441\u0442\u0456\u0440 \u043f\u0440\u0438\u043a\u043e\u0440\u0434\u043e\u043d\u043d\u044f\u00bb)<\/span>, an international land art symposium held in the village of Mohrytsia. A BIRUCHIY contemporary art project resident since 2013, he participated in the NonStopMedia International Biennale of Youth Projects (2014), Festival of Young Ukrainian Artists (2017), and numerous group and solo exhibitions. In 2018, he got a nomination for the PinchukArtCentre Prize. Vitaliy works with media, painting, graphics, installations, photography, video, and land art, focusing on collective memory matters. Specifically, he took part in the <\/span>Memorialization Practices Lab<\/span><\/a> (2024) and the <\/span>Contest for Memorial Projects in Memory of the Holodomors Victims in Ukraine<\/span><\/a> (Melitopol, 2021).<\/span><\/p>\n <\/div>\r\n \r\n \r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n\r\n<\/section>\r\n\r\n\n\n\r\n

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