"Reflection". An interactive VR project by Roksolana Dudka about memory, loss, and presence
July 4 — 11, 2026
Dnipro Center for Contemporary Culture (21A Krutohirnyi Uzviz)
Exhibition opening: July 4, 2026, 6:00 PM.
An author-led tour of the exhibition will also take place on opening day.
"Reflection" is an interactive VR project by artist Roksolana Dudka about memory, loss, and presence, created on the basis of personal experience of staying in Soledar, archival materials, and the memories of people whose lives were connected to the town and surrounding communities.
The viewer enters an underground space inspired by Soledar's salt and gypsum mines — a stylized environment where geology, light, sound, and digital objects function as carriers of memory. The space consists of several interconnected scenes: in the first cave, a contour sculpture is activated only by human presence — light appears as a metaphor for memory. Other spaces evoke the landscapes of gypsum mines, flooded quarries, and the steppes of the Donetsk region, where archival materials are combined with artistically transformed digital environments.
An important part of the project is the voice stories — memories of internally displaced people, collected during workshops in Kamianske, Dnipro, and Kyiv. Some of the objects were created collectively: through molding, scanning, and digitizing forms, private memory became a physical part of the digital environment.
The project does not document destruction literally and deliberately avoids realistic representation of war — instead, it creates a safe space for engaging with memories. It is an attempt to speak about the city not as a lost object, but as a living memory that continues to exist through people, their voices, and imagination.
The project was realized within the "Heritage. Practical Work" residency, part of the capacity-building and networking program for local cultural actors "Room for Heritage" — a joint initiative for local cultural actors in Ukraine focused on reinterpreting cultural heritage and strengthening social cohesion.
Roksolana Dudka is a multidisciplinary artist, PhD in Design, candidate of art studies, and associate professor at the Department of Architecture and Design of Lutsk National Technical University. She works with painting and ceramics (small sculpture), creates installations and public space projects, VR/AR and video art, and practices participatory artistic and curatorial work.
The capacity-building and networking program for local cultural actors "Room for Heritage" is supported by the Partnership Fund for a Resilient Ukraine (PFRU), funded by the governments of the United Kingdom, Estonia, Canada, Norway, Finland, Switzerland, and Sweden. The Program's goal is to strengthen Ukraine's resilience amid Russian aggression by providing critical support to local communities in cooperation with Ukrainian government bodies, civil society, media, and the private sector.