Varvara Uhlik

Exhibited works:

Soviet Playground in Dnipro, 2021

Visiting Aunt in Crimea, 2023

In the Black Sea with Auntie and Mom, 2024

from the series “Sunshine, How Are You?”

“Drawing from my experiences of growing up in eastern Ukraine, my practice explores the personal and social complexities inherited by the post-Soviet generation. I reflect on the lasting effects of generational trauma and Russian imperialism on individual and collective identities, as well as their ongoing influence on the contemporary sociocultural landscapes of Eastern Europe.

My practice is driven by a need to process and understand my own history, personal and collective. I’ve always been surrounded by remnants of the Soviet past and its quiet traumas. I’m inspired by the relationship between nostalgia and disillusionment, between memory and forgetting. I find a lot of motivation in digital culture – how images circulate, mutate, and shape our perceptions of reality. These layers of influence push me to explore how visual language can hold space for ambiguity, vulnerability, and resistance.

My goal is to create images that linger, inviting viewers to question what is remembered, what is forgotten, and how both are shaped by history, memory, and technology. This feels especially prescient in an age where even memories can be simulated by AI, blurring the boundaries between truth and fabrication. Through my work, I hope to share a more nuanced understanding of Ukrainian culture, one that goes beyond narratives of war and suffering.”