CAMOUFLAGE

Krajka, 2021
hand-tied fabric, embroidery

In the Ukrainian culture, “Krajka” (Ukr. – крайка) is a belt that served to hold the thigh clothes, as well as a talisman that was supposed to protect against the bad influences of reality with the help of a symbolic system of patterns embroidered on it.

The story of Krajka began with 31 female surnames found by the artist’s grandmother in the archives, all together they represent the great unity of the family, whose members were never known except for the archival fact. Krajka appeared at the moment when the artist’s grandmother got ill with COVID-19, which was followed by a long period recovery after the crisis.
Author recreated her grandmother’s handwriting on each individual piece of cloth, woven by her for each surname specifically. Their unification into one belt – krajka, reflects the restored family sequence, which was lost amongst political catastrophes: evacuations, forced displacement based on national grounds, and so on. This unity symbolizes the return of one’s “own” history and becomes a sign of resistance to the principle of oblivion that history imposes on us.

Lera Pliekhotko