RUST IN TIME

Rust in time (2022) is a personal body of work about Alena’s family home in Ivanovka, a small village in Donbas, Eastern Ukraine, that has become a military base. In Summer 2021 despite the restricted borders, she managed to visit her parents' home. It felt strange—a moment of great stillness along with arresting hopelessness, and she was particularly struck by the many rusted objects lying around which signaled the area’s industrial past. 

The rusted objects presented here were collected in Scotland—at the seashore, Edinburgh streets, friend’s gardens, and hidden scrap yards. For Alena these objects began to form an emotional link between her two homes, helping her to cope as the situation began to rapidly worsen in Ukraine. 

Finally, Alena painted on layers of latex, a liquid rubber which is then peeled carefully off, providing her with moments of deep emotional relief. The latex for her is a bandage, helping to heal and support both the work and the artist, as she moves forward with the pain. 

The project was initially exhibited at Custom Lane (Edinburgh) as part of the End of Year Show at Leith School of Art (June 2022) for which Alena won the Outstanding Contemporary Art Practice Award. As a special addition to the show, in collaboration with Volunteer Edinburgh, Ukrainian Community Club (AUGB), and Custom Lane, Alena managed to bring a group of displaced people who recently arrived from Ukraine. This collaboration extended to a series of weekly community art classes led by Alena at AUGB.

In August 2022 Rust in Time was exhibited as a part of the public art show Consequences. Art and Activism in the Nuclear Age at the Out of the Blue Drill Hall, Edinburgh.