Status: Ongoing collaborative project. More information will follow soon.

The destruction of the Kakhovka Dam and the resulting environmental and humanitarian disaster stand as a devastating tragedy today. It is crucial to recognise that the construction of the very same dam was equally a great tragedy. This area, once abundant with productive marshes (a biodiverse and complex system of animals, plants, birds, fish, and other aquatic species), transformed into a place where political powers assumed a new form — the knowledge and command of space.

The Kakhovka Dam is a manifestation of Stalin's "Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature," which aimed at fully changing the physical environment for regime developmental purposes and establishing control over the previously 'uncontrollable' territory. Ironically, the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam by the Russian Forces in 2023 serves as a metaphor for the dismantling of their own system of centuries of control.

With the breach of the Kakhovka Dam, not only did sediment of historical relics and memories emerge, but also centuries of traumas, simultaneously revealing 2000 square kilometres of the former underwater significant archaeological sites crucial to Ukrainian history. Moreover, despite the widespread devastation caused by the dam breach, some environmentalists argue against the reconstruction of the Kakhovka Dam, deeming it "inefficient" and detrimental to the environment.

Landscapes are reconstructed in response to people’s changing definitions of themselves and the world. 

How can we manifest through space the new period of a Free Ukraine, which is not based on control but on the recognition of freedom and the rights of humans and beyond humans? How can design tools be employed to subvert existing systems of colonialism, capitalism, and control, replacing them with structures based on the principles of togetherness, coexistence with nature, and its dynamics?