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| Photo taken by Xinhua/Reuters photography |
Kseniya Simonova was
born in Yevpotoria, Ukraine in 1985 to artist, and teacher, Irina and former military officer,
Alexander Simonova and grew up drawing, painting and designing with her mother.
Simonova majored in psychology at the Tavrida National Vernadsky University
where she graduated with honors in 2007 and despite the discouragement from her
parents, soon after graduating decided that she wanted a career in art. Today, she
is known internationally for her performance art. Camera set-up above,
projecting her work onto a screen, she performs for audiences and since being
discovered in 2009 after winning, “Ukraine’s got Talent,” has done over 200
shows, or what she calls, “sand stories.”
Simonova is a sand animation artist. Performing on a light box she tells
stories to her viewers in scenes created from a mix of volcanic sand and salt.
Her performance on the semi-finals of, “Ukraine’s
got Talent,” (The Story of War) has been called a requiem for those
that died during the, “Great Patriotic war” or World War II. Unfortunately, she has not yet made her
American début so most of her American fans have only seen her via the
Internet. In an interview with Simonova she explains that
after the, “credit crunch,” in the Ukraine took away their successful Bilingual
Magazine, “Chocolate,” led her and theatrical director husband, Igor Paskar to collaborate
for the idea of performing sand art, she states:
“It
just collapsed, many people go crazy, but we didn’t because we did this, so
thank this and thank the crisis because finally it was the reason we started to
do this.”
Kseniya Simonova (Scene
from Story of Troyans) 2009
Simonova,
telling her husband that it was too difficult of a medium, originally refused
the idea. However, the crisis almost left them no choice. First, attempting to
no avail to use beach and river sand, they began researching different types of
sand online. After deciding that very expensive, volcanic sand would be best
for the job, Igor sold all his printing equipment to invest in about 7 pounds
of sand for his wife’s new artistic, money-earning endeavor. For three straight
months, from 10pm to 4am Simonova trained painstakingly in a small dark room in
their home, as she explained in aforementioned interview, she had to retrain
her vision to see items, and people as they would appear in sand. She has many
different performances viewers can watch online, and has become known as an Internet
sensation. Putting her new found fame for good use, she has recently become a
spokesperson for, “Children of Chernobyl,” (COCC) a not-for-profit organization that evacuates kids from
the radioactive Chernobyl region and provides them with critical medical care,
new homes, and excellent education in Israel. She performed a story called, “Eternal
Tears,” in their honor on the 25th anniversary of the
disaster in Rotterdam. Simonova has performed in fifteen different countries,
for presidents and members of the British royal family. Her exposure as an
artist the past couple of years has been immense. She was honored country-wide
in Ukraine by both the Supreme council of Crimea and the International
Organization for Migration, and states that she can no longer walk around her
hometown without being recognized in the streets and with a population of
nearly 200,000 citizens, that’s no small feat. All this with just volcanic
sand, fingertips and a light box, “Thank the crisis.”
-Rebecca Wallace
