2023
performance / installation
“My sister’s words deeply affected me: sadness has replaced joy and my life is filled with panic. Lost childhood is also the price that children in Ukraine are paying now. The Ukrainian freedom that I want to show is a free land that is now soaked in tears and blood”, – ASAKI.
The performance called FREEDOM IS NOT FREE involves an aquarium and Ukrainian soil delivered to Riga from all Ukrainian regions where active warfare took place. For example - the legendary Chornobaivka in the Kherson region is called the Ukrainian Bermuda Triangle, because 26 times we hit enemy targets there; or from the village Yahidne in the Chernihiv region in Ukraine, where 286 people were under occupation in a school basement for 27 days in March 2022. Every Ukrainian paid his price in the storm of war for Ukrainian freedom. It doesn’t matter how old you are, you pay your price – childhood, health, life.