I want to share with you my recent installation work.

"May Your Children Not Know War"

Inna Peck, 2022

I was nine years old when my family immigrated to the Pacific NorthWest and today we still have family in our home in Ukraine. This work is about about confronting the current cultural genocide of Ukrainian heritage and people. This installation was made to immerse the viewer into a dynamic emotional landscape, where there are select materials and objects that make up the exhibit.

One of my favorite mediums to work with is glass, for its ability to hold and pass light through. To me, it represents the universal contrast of being a solid and a liquid, resilient and fragile at the same time.

I work with detritus and discard scraps because they carry the history of their past life and I see that as a way to layer stories into my work. The domestic objects represent the violation of societal order and the invasion of private spaces.

One of the oldest Ukrainian symbols is the headdress. The vinok was always decorated with different colored ribbons which were imbued with symbolism and meaning. Girls use red ribbons to intertwine poppies into the wreaths, they are symbols of grief and magic. My personal reference to the ribbons is a special tree by the river in Kyiv where people come to tie ribbons to cast their wishes.

Namysto (necklace in Ukrainian) is an important part of traditional jewelry worn by ancient and modern women. The beads (most often red) had an aesthetic and symbolic meaning. It is believed that the red necklace beads drove away evil spirits.

There is a hidden meaning behind traditional patterns in Ukrainian embroidery. Ukrainians believe that embroidery is able to act like a talisman, protecting against everything bad. Many symbols represent happiness, fate, life and power within the ornamentation. The patterns from traditional needlepoint embroidery are represented on the broken panels of glass to reference cultural destruction and erasure.