The War Fragments

The War Fragments represent a unique approach to historical preservation, originating from a project that seeks to catalog the human cost of conflict in real time. Rather than relying solely on traditional monuments or archival documents, the project involves collecting physical remnants from sites of active destruction in Ukraine and encasing them in transparent cubes of epoxy resin. These objects are transformed into permanent, tangible artifacts that serve as solitary witnesses to specific events. One example includes fragments of plastic seating salvaged from the Yuri Gagarin Stadium in Chernihiv, which was destroyed by airstrikes in March of twenty twenty-two. Another artifact is a small piece of the wreckage from the An-two-twenty-five Mriya, the world’s largest cargo plane, which stood as a powerful symbol of Ukrainian industry before it was ruined early in the invasion. By suspending these damaged items in resin, the project aims to create a sense of arrested time, ensuring that the physical evidence of the war remains protected while clearly visible to those who view them. Each cube is curated to carry the specific story of a person or a place affected by the conflict, moving the experience of remembrance beyond abstract statistics.