This performance emerged from a single symbol. A few years of work and exploration have brought the artist to a sign that acquired new meaning at the beginning of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine when Margo Sarkisova began working on the War Diary series. The Sun has an archetypal potency and role in all cultures and is always the “source of life”. Now, it has been transformed into its opposite – darkness and death.

The garden is veiled with a delicate curtain of «inversion», turning light outward.

Life is suspended, awaiting the end of the reign of ignorance and darkness.

At the same time, the “Black Sun Rising” continues the Dream graphic series Margo commenced in Kharkiv in 2019. Now, the mask has become one of the core elements in the performative action. It represents the all-absorbing Black Sun, the shadow of which spreads around the Earth. Also, the black sun as a symbol refers to the Buddhist concept of “Fundamental Darkness” (or fundamental ignorance, primal ignorance). In this sense, Darkness means the inability to see or recognise the truth.

The performance took place on Earth Day in April 2023 as a collaboration with the artist Reni Hofmüller (Graz, Austria). In addition to the mask, fabric canvas with a printed linocut and embroidery with a conductive thread allowed signals from the city's electromagnetic presence and noise to come through. In this manner, the Black Sun was intended to “sound” and spread “waves” around itself, covering everything with its thin dark veil.