Inherited Spaces: a series of mixed media collages

Project overview: Inherited Spaces explores the evolving urban identity of Ukrainian cities through archival representations of the built environment. The series considers the city as a layered record of political, social and cultural change, where successive periods leave visible traces that coexist with newer forms of urban life. Created in 2017–2018, the project reflects a period of active re-examination of Soviet-era heritage and its place within contemporary Ukraine. The collages bring different moments of the urban landscape into the same visual field, examining the tension between inherited structures, changing identities and the continual reinterpretation of place.

Format: 8 collages, 42 × 59.4 cm (16.5 × 23.5 in) each.

Medium: Paper, archival imagery and thread on cardboard.

Year: 2017 – 2018

Material language

01

Archival imagery forms the visual foundation of the collages, fragmented and layered to disrupt a continuous reading of the urban landscape. Paper retains the physical qualities of the source material, with visible edges, overlaps and changes in surface creating a sense of accumulation over time.

Thread introduces a second geometric system across the image. Straight lines intersect, connect and divide architectural forms, extending beyond the printed fragments and reorganizing the space of the collage. Its physical separation from the paper creates subtle depth and shadow, reinforcing the tension between the documented city and the structures imposed upon it.

The contrast between photographic representation and abstract geometry also creates ambiguity between what belongs to the city and what has been added to it. Familiar urban forms become partially obscured, reframed or connected to unrelated fragments, allowing the collages to hold multiple readings of the same place at once.

The series

02

The 8 collages form a connected study of Ukrainian urban space, with each composition presenting a distinct arrangement of archival fragments, architecture and geometric intervention. A consistent format and material vocabulary establish continuity across the series, while differences in imagery and composition allow each collage to develop its own spatial character.

Viewed together, the works shift attention from individual buildings or moments in time toward broader patterns of transformation. Fragments of different urban histories coexist within the same body of work, reflecting how cities accumulate, retain and reinterpret successive layers of their past.