The city preserves its memory just as a river preserves the flow of water: invisible but constant, shaping the banks and our own stories. The current may change, the channel may break, the water may recede and return, but its presence is always felt. Memory is also fluid: it becomes clearer, then fades, then returns to us in a wave of sensations, like a soothing shade of nostalgia that sometimes prompts reflection.
Despite all the changes in the coastal landscape, the flow of the river contains something eternal and enduring. Sometimes, slowing down and pausing to gaze at the wide waters of the Dnipro, one feels a sense of belonging to the flow of time. The river has witnessed and participated in many events; history has unfolded around it. Industrialization, which once sounded like a promise of progress, brought heavy metals and man-made sediment into the waters, eroded the natural coastal meadows, and wiped out ancient fishing settlements that had lived in harmony with the flow for generations. Modernization, which claimed omnipotence, rewrote history in its own way. Bans on small boats and sailboats cut off an entire culture of slow movement, in which the city was read from the water. Today, the river continues to reflect change: during blackouts, the lights of the city on the other side fade, the river darkens, loses its nighttime sparkle, and almost disappears from view, continuing its quiet course.
Sometimes it is frightening to think about the future, so we often return to our memories. At such moments, nostalgia overwhelms us from head to toe, but dark spots also appear in our memory: uncomfortable, painful, or traumatic memories emerge. They cannot be washed away with water, but they can be reinterpreted so that they do not control our lives, do not poison them like mold, which can and must be treated by restoring memories for the sake of the future.
The graphics presented in the exhibition retain traces of mold on themselves, as evidence of the literal fragility and distortion of memory, of destructive oblivion. The exhibition invites us to enter into a dialogue with the past: not to erase the difficult pages of history, not to cleanse it of pain, but to transform it into knowledge. True healing of memory is possible only when we allow ourselves to see it in its entirety — with difficult periods, uncomfortable memories, doubts, and losses. They become a resource: they help us understand the mechanisms of violence, mistakes, and destruction — and enable us to act differently.
The image on Yevgeny Korshunov's canvas reveals only a fragment of the city: just as in our personal memories, specific streets, meeting places, and buildings that we often pass on our way home become important to us. The embodiment of imagination allows us to rethink and revive broken connections, to find images and words where they seemed to be lost forever. This journey becomes a moment to search for words, erased stories, and awareness of one's place in each of them.
Nature gradually heals wounds. The city lives and breathes, and the Dnipro breathes with it in unison. Like a gentle tide, the river reveals its ancient memory to us, telling the story of past generations. It returns our memories to us like rainwater, and sometime in the future, it will surely do so again, sharing our joys and sorrows. With new currents and with new us.
WHEN: December 6 – December 23, 2025
WHERE: DCCC Experimental Studio, second floor, 21a Krutohirny descent, Dnipro (entrance through the glass doors from Uspenska Square)
ADMISSION FREE
The exhibition “Dnipro: The River of Memory” was created based on the Artsvit Gallery's collection. It is the result of joint work by participants in the Gallery Lab educational program for young people.
Program participants: Anastasia Abramova, Margarita Bozhko, Olena Brekhunenko, Daria Kozlovska, Taisiya Kuzmenko, Ada Leonchenko, Oksana Miroshnyk, Yelyzaveta Orel, Polina Pakhniy, Albina Pryschep, Elvira Rustamova, Anna Chaika, Anna Shermal.
Program created by: Oleksandra Shovkun
Implemented with the support of the Goethe-Institut in Ukraine, the MC6 Creative Residency and the non-governmental organisation Inshaya Osvita as part of the Cultural Resistance project, which is funded by the Eastern Partnership programme of the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany.
