Phantom vases-stems

In this series of vases, a piece of war debris—a spent shell casing from Bakhmut—is turned into a mold for casts. This military remnant, a bearer of death, becomes the basis for transparent forms filled with flowers and medicinal herbs.

The vases look like frozen organisms — time capsules where fragments of war meet fragile traces of life. They do not hide their origin: metal fragments from Izyum, fragments of destruction transformed into new physicality, show through the thickness of the resin. Inside are dried herbs and flowers, protective plants that heal and prolong life even in destruction.

Here, the “vase” is not an object of decoration, but a symbol of physicality: it takes on the function of a vessel that preserves memory, pain, and the possibility of healing. It becomes a body that contains death, care, and the continuation of life. In these objects, the transparency of the resin emphasizes the impossibility of escaping the experience of war: even when it is fixed, imprisoned, its fragments remain inside. But it is in this fragility that a new strength emerges — the possibility of transforming the deadly into a talisman, ruins into a garden.

Photo by Felix SC Wong