Alevtina Kahidze. The House of Alevtina Kakhidze’s Mother, 2021. Sculpture
Description
Five years after the war began, on January 16, 2019, Liudmyla Andriivna Kakhidze, the mother of Alevtina Kakhidze, died while crossing the checkpoint between the part of Donetsk region occupied by Russia and the part controlled by Ukraine. Two years later, the artist created her mother’s grave in the village of Muzychi, Kyiv region, replicating the layout of her mother’s house and symbolically relocating it to a new place—an act of respect and complete acceptance of her mother’s decision to remain at home in the occupied territory all that time.
Each gravestone or wall of the house featured a segment of the inscription: first, her mother’s full name and the dates of her life and death, followed by the text “Strawberry Andreevna, you died at ‘zero line’, now you are here and your house is here, the one that held you so tight.” For Alevtina Kakhidze, the creation of this sculptural monument became a reflection on “what it means to exist in an armed conflict for those who become its participants, whose lives are marked by the contact line.”[1] The final, sixth stone concluded with the dedication: “To all who died alone in Russian occupation.”
- The House of Alevtina Kakhidze’s Mother: A Monument to All Those Who Did Not Take Part in the War but Became Part of It, Past/Future/Art, December 23, 2021,
https://pastfutureart.org/alevtina-kakhidze-mother-memorial/.
