In Ukraine, it was customary that a bride came to her groom with a payment or a property to contribute to their new family. Often, a dowry – a posag – consisted of the garments tailored and embroidered by the women of the bride’s family. This way, they gave her the means for living. The posag tradition was ancient and lasted for many centuries; it survived wars, hungers, and ruin.

When russia invaded their country, Ukrainians took to arms to defend their sovereignty. Thousands voluntarily joined the army; hundreds of thousands found their own ways of volunteering for the sake of freedom. Crafting camouflage nets has become one of the most common volunteer activities. Since the first days of war, people have been, and still are, bringing their greenish and brownish clothes to be cut to stripes and woven into a net. I believe this to be a revival of the posag tradition, a symbolic act of sacrificing something private, subjective to craft a collective, common fabric that will literally protect the future of the entire people.

The Posag project aims to work with a traumatic experience of war. With it, I’m attempting to comprehend the possibility of renaissance and return to peaceful life. Hence, the idea is to undo the net, to weave it backwards, so to say. A single-piece fabric is unwoven, the pieces of cloths get sorted and re-fashioned into the garment they once had been – the gown that becomes a symbol of the maimed and then healed future crafted as a dowry for the new generation of Ukrainians. The process of unweaving, sorting, and re-fashioning is performed by the women representing three generations of one family. Thus, Posag will revive the ancient and forgotten tradition of collective crafting a wedding gift.

#NEIVANMADE

Center of Contemporary Art M17, Kyiv, Ukraine