Lesia Vasylchenko
Lesia Vasylchenko (born in Kyiv, Ukraine; lives in Oslo, Norway) works across a range of media including video, photography and installation. In her research-based practice, Vasylchenko explores encounters between visual cultures, media technologies and the politics of time. She is a co-curator of the artist-run gallery space “Podium” and the founder of “STRUKTURA. Time”, a cross-disciplinary initiative for research and practice in visual arts, media archaeology, literature and philosophy. She holds a degree in Journalism from the Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv and a degree in Fine Arts from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. Vasylchenko’s work has been recently exhibited at MUNCH Museum, Henie Onstad Art Center and Kunsthall Oslo. Vasylchenko’s works are part of the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art KIASMA / Finnish National Gallery in Helsinki, Finland.
A WILLOW’S LAMENT ETCHED IN LIGHT
2025
sculpture
5D memory crystal, weeping willow tree, SAR satellite image, concrete, cast epoxy resin
Commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, the Visual Culture Research Center, and RIBBON International for the Kyiv Biennial 2025. Supported by OCA Norway
This memorial belongs to the speculative future, exploring how memory and mourning are stored in technological, cultural and ecological dimensions. At its center stands a weeping willow, rooted in Ukrainian folklore as a symbol of the cyclical nature of time, memory and renewal. The work combines synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) data, folklore, and ghost stories to trace willow forests now growing where water once flowed. Embedded in the sculpture is a SAR satellite image of the Kakhovka reservoir, captured after the catastrophic destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam on 6 June 2023, as well as an optical 5D data device—the “eternal memory crystal”—designed to preserve data for billions of years. Encoded with light, it surpasses paper, film or hard drives, serving as both a metaphor and an epitaph of deep time: a fossilized light transporting memory into a future yet to come. Inside is the voice of the artist’s grandmother, singing a Ukrainian folk song about weeping willows—preserved within a technology designed to carry it far beyond human timescales.