The Chips: Ukrainian Naïve Mosaics of the 1950-90s

A photobook The Chips: Ukrainian Naїve Mosaics of the 1950–90s by photographer Yevgen Nikiforov and art historian Polina Baitsym records a vanishing phenomenon on the periphery of art and public life. The archive, collected between 2013 and 2023 and conceived as a book in 2019, presents mosaics by unknown authors in a state of half-decay—when they have already lost their initial glow, are decaying, or are disappearing into the lower layers of facades and city panoramas. Naïve mosaics are often a mundane backdrop for local residents, or an uncomfortable and problematic material for the transformation process of public spaces. The book focuses on them as a phenomenon that raises questions about memory and space, past and present, self-expression and imitation, and captures the fragility of the monumental, which, like chips, eventually became crumbs at the bottom of the package.

Funding is provided from the Stabilization Fund for Culture and Education 2023, by the Federal Foreign Office of Germany and the Goethe-Institut.

goethe.de

Team

Author of the photos: Yevgen Nikiforov

Author of the texts: Polina Baitsym

Publisher: ist publishing

Editor of English texts: Zoe Turner

Editor of Ukrainian texts: Oleksandra Sauliak

Corrector of English texts: Iryna Kurhanska

Corrector of Ukrainian texts: Victoria Berkut

Design and layout: Ostap Yashchuk

Printed by LLC Printing House “From A to Z”