Olesia Kryvolapova
Creating process
"Home 2025"
For the Research Festival, I decided to create an artist’s book titled “Home.” It continues the themes explored in my previous artworks while also standing as an independent project.
As a starting point, I chose to combine materials from the workshop I conducted at the Ukrainian Social Centre in Richmond with my own photographs taken in Ukraine. Later, I also invited a group of Ukrainian children currently living in the UK to take part in the project.
The first step was selecting the materials I wanted to use and composing them into a visual narrative. I used prints to build collages that connected the children’s drawings with my photographs.
Afterwards, I decided to print the work using the photolithography technique. To make it more playful and expressive, I incorporated the chine-collé method as well.
I began experimenting with different types of paper, searching for a level of transparency that would allow the layers to interact visually. For the book’s form, I chose fabric rolls, which gave it a flexible and tactile quality. I also stitched together various paper layers to enhance the sense of material connection.
In addition to images, I included text — preserving the children’s original handwriting and spelling. The only thing that I added was translation when tts needed.
One of my main goals for this work was to shift the focus away from myself, unlike in my previous projects. I wanted to take the position of an observer, simply translating the children’s words without adding anything of my own.
During my experiments, I tried to combine diferent type of papper, as well as other materials, such as fabric and treads.
Significant source of inspiration for my choise of stylistic for the book is the Amsterdam-based artist Jackie Mulder and her artist book Thought Trails, which I discovered by chance on Instagram.
Mulder’s use of fabric, threads, and photographs to create multi-layered visual structures provided a conceptual framework for developing the materiality and organisation of my own publication. Her work prompted me to experiment with different types of paper and materials, aiming to introduce greater depth, tactility, and complexity into my artist’s book. Alongside this material exploration, I am interested in retaining elements of collage and a degree of visual playfulness, to reflect the fluid and subjective nature of memory.