Everything I Have

Everything I Have is a sculptural work centred on an empty suitcase – an object traditionally meant to contain what is most necessary or valuable. Here, its emptiness becomes a statement, reflecting the experience of forced displacement during Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

This suitcase is the actual one the artist and her family carried while fleeing Ukraine in February 2022. The work draws attention to the impossible decisions refugees are forced to make under conditions of urgency and fear. What can be taken when time collapses? Documents, clothing, children's drawings, a book, a handful of soil – each choice shaped by instinct, memory, and uncertainty.

In Ukraine today, emergency bags have become part of everyday life, prepared for air raids and sudden evacuation. Yet at the beginning of the invasion, many had no time to pack at all. Homes were destroyed overnight, erasing not only material possessions but the possibility of choice itself. The empty suitcase stands as both a physical object and a space of absence, posing an open question about what war allows one to carry forward – and what it irrevocably leaves behind.