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Front Page Project #32

The VASA Front Page Project
presents the work of a photographer, video and sound artist.

Yaroslav Kostenko /Iryna Ilyinska 

"Singing"
a video projection

In Memoriam Wassyl Slipak

Wassyl Slipak was an opera singer from Ukraine, a soloist at Paris National Opera, who volunteered to defend his homeland when the war in eastern Ukraine started in 2014.

He was killed by a sniper on June 29, 2016.

Video artist Yaroslav Kostenko and painter Iryna Ilyinska dedicated their project to Wassyl Slipak.

Iryna Ilyinska’s Singing diptych is a painting depiction of a traditional Ukrainian carpet with nightingales and flowers. Nightingales are the best singing talents found among birds, but birds are also associated with human souls descending down to the earth from heaven. The depiction of a rose is a symbol of the Sun, love and life. The artist uses the colors of traditional ornament to underpin the symbolic values of his work.

The video projection is accompanied by music composed by a Viennese composer Karlheinz Essl (Mozart-Lamento), a recording of nightingale’s singing, sounds of machine gun shots and fragments of an aria sung by Wassyl Slipak.

Videoart: Yaroslav Kostenko, Diz Art Studio (Ukraine)
Painting: Iryna Ilyinska — Singing, diptych, oil on canvas (Ukraine)
Music: Karlheinz Essl, Mozart-Lamento (2015-2017) (Austria)
Singer: Wassyl Slipak (France/Ukraine)
Sound Design: BeCaDi (Dmytro Svitlov, Ukraine)

The video was first screened at Kyiv Lights Festival, May 2017.

Video may be played at full screen

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