Yuriy Biley

In his works, Yuriy Biley explores the topic of emigration and reflects on current social and political events. Most of his projects are based on personal experiences, which he further shapes through borrowings and quotations. The topic of emigration is a natural direction of his artistic practice, as seven years ago Biley moved to Poland.

In this work, he is using familiar art forms to depict his newly emerged feelings concerning the war and to reflect on them. It consists of three chapters, each dedicated to one member of Biley’s family, all of whom live in Ukraine.

The first chapter is dedicated to the artist’s younger brother, who is currently fighting the war in the frontline. Here, Yuriy Biley presents a video with ongoing editing titled Write at Least Once a Day, in which he reads aloud his correspondence with his brother. The second chapter of the work, titled Father-land, presents objects together with accompanying stories. These are artefacts that anchor memories starting from the artist’s childhood and tell about his father’s influence on Biley’s personal artistic development. In the third chapter, titled My Mother’s Photos, the author displays photographs taken by his mother, depicting bouquets of flowers grown and composed by herself. All of these were made after February 24, 2022. By including her works, Biley finds a way to present his mother’s untapped creative potential to a wider audience.

We’ll Meet Again shows a poetic overlay of longing, love, fear, guilt and dismay that the artist feels due to the impossibility of making the right choice. The decision of whether to stay with his wife in Poland or to visit his relatives in Ukraine puts him into a position of tragic conflict with no real solution. Thereby, the artist also raises the issue of the new reality where Ukrainians living abroad cannot return home.