"Protective layer" is a continuation of my creative practice. However, the changes in reality that are happening now made me reconsider the meaning of previously created images and techniques I was using.

The art world I have been creating from wood during the last few years was unexpectedly complemented by metal. For me, metal has always been an aggressive material, unlike wood. Working with it is always dangerous: welding, burns, sparks, rust, and wounds. The chance of hurting oneself is implied within metal as it is more solid than the human body. In this project, traumatising and traumatised metal becomes an embodiment of wartime feelings, a constant correlation between protection and defencelessness.

I believe my art and this project cannot be tragedy documentation in the literal sense, but art rarely tells about and describes events directly. It is essential for me that art should note the exact mental and physical tension that unites all of us in the fight.

The project has five conceptual blocks:

1. Houses. Wood, ink. March-May 2022.
   People are crying for their houses. People are crying for their people. To some, there is nowhere to come back. For some places, there’s no one to come back there.

Typical buildings, residential areas, and grey rectangles do not irritate anymore. They are wounded, and we feel sorry for them. Wounds gave them personal features and made them related, different, and important.

Every board is a ritual of magical city reconstruction, the fixation of the feeling we take with us when leaving home.

Radical with the remains of land gives the objects a functional chance to return to their place.

2. Walls. Metal, welding. May-October 2022.
   People are counting walls. The number of walls and the angle of their arrangement in relation to possible explosions are critical now. People are closing windows. Windows became unsafe.

That, which was protecting from reality, that, behind which we could hide, became unreliable. The perception of city space changed forever.

But this block is not about a ruin, although it seems so. Wall planes rise from land planes, rise from the grave. The city is being resurrected, so it can give shelter to those who will still come back home with memories of those who will never be resurrected.

3. Leaves. Metal, welding, coinage. July-November 2022.
   Decoration of temporary housings by people and spring bird commotion around new nests are similar on the mythological level. Mary and Joseph, hiding in the barn from the forces of evil, and two birds, choosing a place for their chicks, are the eternal story that happens on all life levels and at all times.

Leaves below a nest are the same for birds as walls and concrete barriers for people. As soon as there is a mistake in construction calculations, hail or a Russian "GRAD" rocket will destroy our nests. Can a bird really protect leaves?

The last leaf was created at the end of November when the trees were already naked, and wasted protection was on the land.

4. Land. Metal, welding. September-October 2022.
   Fallen leaves lay on the land, gradually turning into it. The land is being nourished by what it birthed by itself. That is why it seems immortal.

The body of land can handle a lot of suffering but cannot dodge enemy strikes. It cannot fail under enemies' feet. It cannot push explosive devices away from itself.

What should the armor be so that it could protect this humongous body?

There are no humans in this project, but it is about people. They feel the pain that land feels because they grew up on it. People are protecting the body of land with themselves, creating the strongest protective layer.

5. Seedlings. Metal, welding, concrete. October 2022.
   Small trees are planted in autumn, so they can adapt to new reality during winter and bloom in spring.

Thought about the future only seems to be fragile. While delicate in appearance, small trees are created from two materials authentic for a city: metal and concrete. New, unbreakable and powerful life will grow out of them.

The year cycle and project cycle will finish with a ritual act. In Kharkiv, in Pivnichna Saltivka city district, the biggest seedling was buried in the ground near ruins, which are now being rebuilt.