"CHILLTAN" is a Central Asian spirit that contains forty bodies within one.

To embody CHILLTAN, I developed my own technique. The time-consuming process involves shaping an abstract wire frame and creating the spirit by dripping beeswax candles over it, drop by drop. I intentionally leave much room for chance so that the spirits can autonomously determine the forms they wish to embody. Even in their final solid state, the spirit retains a sense of frozen fluidity.

 

A topic that particularly moves me today is the lack of belonging. The question of my national identity has become very relevant to me lately. I felt it was necessary to explore this topic through the Central Asian spirit, as I was born in Uzbekistan and lived there for 21 years, while I am half Ukrainian and half Korean.

 

I wrote a text about it and decided to collect 40 sounds corresponding to the number of heads in the sculpture.

 

To do this, I read my text to 40 people and asked them to interpret the text with a sound they could make with their mouth. In Berlin, it was quite easy to find 40 people in my surroundings who could share my concerns.

 

Using a recording device, I recorded the sounds and then mixed them. At one point, all voices sound simultaneously, like a swarm of bees.

 

It begins with Korean and Ukrainian together, languages I don’t speak, but which are part of my national identity. When I’ve heard them playing together at the same time, it felt like looking in the mirror for the first time. It’s a sonic reflection of my national identity I had never seen before.