Should I Put Sunglasses On?

2017

Project site: Kharkiv, Ukraine

During my residency in Kharkiv as part of the SWAP: UK/Ukraine Artist Residency Programme, supported by the Liverpool Biennial, I undertook a site-responsive practice grounded in daily engagement with the urban environment. Walking through the city became both a method and a medium — a way to navigate the layered complexities of a place shaped by distinct cultural, linguistic, and political frameworks.

What emerged was a deep interest in the semiotics of public space: the everyday misreadings and slippages that occur when encountering unfamiliar signage, systems, and social codes. These moments of cultural misalignment were not only disorienting but also generative, opening up space for critical reflection on translation, perception, and the psychological dimensions of urban experience.

In response, I developed an installation composed of found objects and sound, interwoven with fragments of my own creative writing. The work explores the interface between external environment and internal narrative — the 'surface of the city' and the 'depth of psyche' — and proposes a material and sonic mapping of cultural encounter through subjective, embodied experience.

Liverpool Biennale Website: https://archive.biennial.com/news/artists-announced-for-swap-uk-ukraine-artist-residency-programme

02. Street Sign, Kharkiv, Ukraine
This project emerged from a moment of cultural misalignment: a misreading of a street sign in Kharkiv that revealed deeper tensions between language, public systems, and urban semiotics. What initially appeared as a simple misunderstanding became a point of entry into broader questions about perception, translation, and the invisible codes that structure public space. The resulting piece, Should I Put Sunglasses On?, engages with the fragility of interpretation within cross-cultural contexts, drawing attention to the subtle, sometimes humorous disruptions that occur when familiar systems are viewed through an unfamiliar lens.
01. Should I Put Sunglasses On?, Aluminum sticks, bricks, grass, plastic cups, coloured acetate sheets, colour chalks, polystyrene balls and spray paint. Sound included, 2017
Installation view at the YermilovCentre
03. Should I Put Sunglasses On? (details), Aluminum sticks, bricks, grass, plastic cups, coloured acetate sheets, colour chalks, polystyrene balls and spray paint. Sound included, 2017
Installation view at the YermilovCentre
04. Should I Put Sunglasses On? (details), Aluminum sticks, bricks, grass, plastic cups, coloured acetate sheets, colour chalks, polystyrene balls and spray paint. Sound included, 2017
Installation view at the YermilovCentre
05. Should I Put Sunglasses On? (details), Aluminum sticks, bricks, grass, plastic cups, coloured acetate sheets, colour chalks, polystyrene balls and spray paint. Sound included, 2017
Installation view at the YermilovCentre
06. Exhibition poster, Should I Put Sunglasses On?
Installation view at the YermilovCentre