Table of Negotiations?

"Table of Negotiations?" was created in the summer of 2022 while I, with my newborn child, was evacuated from border-town Uzhhorod to Linz, Austria, by the director of the group of state art museums OÖ Landes Kultur, professor and curator Alfred Weidinger. At that moment, I found myself in emotional despair and constant anxiety, not only due to the full-scale war that had begun, but also due to the emotional trauma of childbirth, postpartum depression, a relentless sense of maternal anxiety, and an overwhelming vulnerability of myself and my body. I felt fragile not only because of these postpartum feelings but also because of my physical state—I was struggling to recover after a difficult C-section that followed a complicated pregnancy. I was relearning to walk, to care for myself, as well as for my tiny infant. I was simply learning to be a mother, but instead of the promised joy, I was overcome by plain human despair and fear. And, most terrifyingly, I felt an unending sense of unreality, because "this had happened before." "This"—this was war. My soul felt erased, as did half of my body—indeed, all "this" I had already experienced; I had been "there" at the start of the war and annexation in 2014… Only now, I no longer felt "alive."

In the face of not knowing what to do, how to care for my baby and myself, where to live, how to raise a child, how to survive, and what would become of my husband and our dreams and plans… I was indeed back where I had been in February 2014, and beyond. Only this time, I bore responsibility not only for my aging and ailing parents and grandmother under occupation but also for my own family, finally found after such a long search for happiness and peace in my soul. I was numbed by the unbearable weight of loss… Museum curators supported my integration as quickly as possible; they wanted to help me continue being an artist first and then a person in exile. And I, not knowing how to live on, with an absence of feeling and basic thought, nominally smiled and agreed to every activity, telling everyone I was fine; "I'm okay"; I was "kind of vaccinated against the war," as I already knew what had happened and understood what would come; "no need to pity me, as others have it worse." I threw myself into every activity, every possible exhibition, everywhere, just to feel alive again, to be useful, to avoid checking the news for at least five minutes… But… in reality, I dreamed of a simple, comfortable motherhood, of enjoying the moments of watching my little daughter grow, of simply living and easily creating beautiful architecture and wise art. In a state of permanent panic, numb from the unbearable pain of loss and the impossibility of mourning my pain—because I had to be strong for my child, for survival—I agreed to all possible projects and public events. One day, thanks to Austrian curators Genoveva Rueckert-Sommerauer and Alfred Weidinger, I found myself at the world's oldest ceramic factory, Gmunden Ceramic, in a residency at the Academy of Ceramic in unbearably beautiful Gmunden. This experience with ceramics allowed me to become a new version of myself while continuing to be who I already was… It was an opportunity to listen to what I truly wanted to say, to explore who I am, and why I think the way I do.

"Creating the Table of Negotiations?" is a personal process of molding a prototype of feelings about "home." I mourned the loss of my previous home for almost eight years, and on the eve of the great war, I had healed—the opportunity through artistic practice to create my own true Home, to accept and love it, only happened when I made peace with the loss of the previous/first home "there" in the occupation. That first home was not only about walls or a roof over my head, or my grandmother's garden and happy childhood memories; it was also about youth, a first great love, and then the first great betrayal, true loss from a true betrayal in love, when you are willing to give your life for someone you love; to give your life for an entire people, for a country, but it remains inconvenient because the person from that first-love-home was not ready to give their life, just as the whole country and its people were not ready then, right at the start of the war, to respond to the enemy's "rape," because back then everyone complied to be able to "live life" further on…

Now I am traumatized again, once again in exile, once again potentially losing everything I have spent eight long years building, gathering myself piece by piece… But now I hold a small child who, for the third year, has no concept of "home." And through this "Table of Negotiations?" I realized I am not ready to lose, and above all, not ready to come to terms with the loss of "Home." That’s why creating ceramic "furniture" from cast parts of my own body, and combining these ceramic, glazed limbs in a composition of cannibalistic piracy became not only a visualization of what is happening at home but also a personal psychological dialogue, articulating trauma to myself, expressing it rather than hiding or silencing it, creating exactly what I truly want to speak about from deep within—this is the truth.

I completed "Table of Negotiations?" this summer, placing fragile, heavy, almost-real cast legs onto a metal table frame. At the opening of the completed version of "Table of Negotiations?" I once again smiled and said I was "okay." Yes, I am in therapy; I am receiving treatment not only for psychological anxiety but also for physical issues that have developed due to constant stress… But still, as almost three years ago, I realized that I simply cannot come to terms with the loss. Now, at the opening, my child could almost look like an adult at the glazed ceramic limbs, yet she still does not know what "home" means—where it is cozy and safe, but she knows well what war and anxiety are. She is no longer the infant she was when I molded this "Table" in a state of shock, numbness, and inability to feel pain… She no longer sits on a bench outside the ceramic factory (in the company of her grandmother [the dissenting refugee from occupation]), waiting for me, her mother, to breastfeed her, hug her, kiss her, and then rush back to the factory to mold… from early morning till late at night.

After the "Table," I began recalling many details from my past life, I began to forgive myself, to learn to forgive those whom I loved endlessly, but… I realized that this Table, this disagreement—is not only mine, not only personal, not only political, not only hauntingly beautiful to the point of nausea, not only a confession, not only about the right to be traumatized, vulnerable, fragile; it’s about the right to speak about it publicly, the right to show to those who violate, who betray, all the horrors of the absence of "home" [= protection] with my own "furniture" [= support]. This is about truth. Now I dream of finding the strength and resources, a place where I can continue my ceramic furniture series, to build my new home. And it will be built on truth without forgetting the past.

Maria Kulikovska