BLOG ENTRY #03

Sand Art

Kseniya Simonova is a sand animator from Ukraine and the 2009 Winner of Ukraine's Got Talent constructing an animation that portrayed the USSR's Great Patriotic War between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany during World War II. She creates different scenes that illustrate how a place attacked and destroyed by the invaders. She constructs a scene where a quiet place suddenly turns into unsafe because of the appearance of the warplanes that attacks it. She also shows how a family loss their communication because of the war.  She also illustrates the sufferings of the people affected by the conflict between the two opposing land.

 Kseniya Simonova begin her performance by lighting a candle and start to create in an illuminated sand table a scene showing a church  and a couple sitting together on a bench under a calm and quite night. They look like happy and holding each other's hand when suddenly the warplanes appear and begin to attack the place. It breaks the silence and the church puts into fire and destroyed the warplanes that indicate that the war has already begun. She illustrates many people died and suffered during the attack. Then, she creates an image of a lady who is crying but when the baby sleeping in a crib arrived, the smile of the lady puts into her face again. She creates a

lighted candle that symbolizes hope and courage to be strong during that the time of misery. It seems likes the lady has still a little hope that the peace will bring back in their place. But the war is still not finish and begins to arouse again. She aggressively throws the sands into the illuminated sand table in any direction.

She creates different faces that are crying and asking for help. It shows that there are a lot of people suffered and died during the war. All the people are in despair, asking for peace, justice for their family who died during the attack of the invaders. It also shows the extreme fear and uncertainties of the people who experience the pain caused by the war. After that scene, she create an image of a young woman who holds an envelope and suddenly turns into an old woman. It represents that she's still waiting to communicate with her lover for a long time. She really wants to hear news about what happen to her lover. And out of that old woman, she creates a

tower that symbolizes the faith of the people. They still believe and pray for peace to bring back in their place. Even though there's a lot of killing incidents, they have faith that everything will be alright and it will end soon. The final part of her performance is she makes an image of a lady facing a window waiting her lover. She's in sorrow and longing for her lover to come back. On the other side of the window, she create an image of a man waving his hand to her and the lady recognize that the man standing outside the window is her lover that puts a smile on her face.

The eagerness of the child to finally meet his father after how many years will now end because his father finally homed. The text that she wrote "Thor benda pagan" which means "“you are always near". the Great Patriotic War is the war between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, which lasted from the German invasion of Russia on June 22, 1941 until Germany signed its unconditional surrender on May 9 1945.

The performance of Simonova was really amazing. She brought the audience into tears even the judges as well. She makes them look back on the dark times of their history, reminisce the pain and suffering carried by the USSR's Great Patriotic War (as generally known as the Eastern Front of World War II). In her presentation, definitely she wants to tells us how pathetic and horrible the life of the people who witness and experienced how hard to survive during World War II.

While watching the Sand Art