Becoming The Self (V)

Becoming The Self (V) is an evolving modular sculpture composed of twenty large-scale slip-cast ceramic bricks. The work reflects on how identity is continuously constructed through pressure, memory, rupture, and lived experience rather than existing as a fixed condition. The repetitive modularity of the bricks began to resemble the ways individuals are altered by emotional, political, and historical forces over time, while echoing the psychological condition of Ukrainians living through prolonged war, displacement, and instability.

Produced during Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the sculpture emerged through the artist's search for inner stability, peace, and self-realisation while living within conditions of uncertainty and rupture. Some ceramic elements remain visibly cracked or deformed following deliberate testing of the clay's physical limits during firing. These fractures are intentionally retained as material records of endurance and vulnerability rather than signs of failure.

While some bricks remain blank, others contain handwritten texts and literary references that informed the artist's understanding of ethics, resilience, responsibility, and becoming, including writings by Lesya Ukrainka, the Bhagavad Gita, and Rudyard Kipling's If, alongside participatory handwritten reflections on peace and collective responsibility.