Erased

Wars uncover extremes. I was struck by how easily one nation’s actions can lead to the erasure of entire cultures — how quickly people move from judging a leader to cancelling a language, a heritage, a tradition — something that is totally unrelated to war decisions. 

Today, society doesn’t separate the guilty from the innocent. It removes everything at once — the bad, the good, even what has no link at all. The language I grew up in, the one that gave the world beauty and striking masterpieces, has also become something to erase.

In these works, I take this idea to its edge. I “erase” letters from great texts until only those shared by Latin and Cyrillic remain — a fragile bridge between worlds, but with lost meaning.

It’s a quiet reminder of how easily judgment turns into full-scale, meaningless destruction.

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    Anna Ahmatova’s poem called “I taught myself to live simply and wisely” was written in 1912. The first thing that is “crossed out” in her poem is the letter “Я”, which also, when translated to English, means “I”. There are no more I’s in our society; there are only we’s and they’s. 

    As the poem continues, more and more letters are being wiped out since they exist only in the Cyrillic alphabet. The cleansing results that we can hardly find the meaning in the text anymore, but we clearly see it is completely flooded with blood.

    Thread on mulberry paper

    2023