In the project Sonechko, Yak Ty? (Sunshine, How Are You?) Varvara Uhlik works with personal family archives alongside newly staged images to create visual narratives that move between the imagined and the remembered. Positioned within a broader set of artistic practices that revisit vernacular archives to question how histories are formed and transmitted, the project addresses the instability of personal and collective memory in a post-Soviet context.

Uhlik was born in Dnipro, Ukraine, in 1997, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Although she did not experience that system directly, its social and disciplinary frameworks remain present in everyday life. Within this framework, the work considers how identity is assembled through fragments, gaps, and contradictions. Uhlik re-construct her youth memories, re-contextualising them as she redefines her identity and cultural heritage. The images reflect an ongoing attempt to situate oneself within inherited structures, serving as pieces in the puzzle of her self-discovery.

Varvara Uhlik now lives in London and cannot visit her family, a situation shared by many Ukrainians whose lives have been shaped by displacement in recent years. In this context, photography becomes a way to return—to eastern Ukraine and to her own past—allowing her to revisit and rework childhood memories.

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