Staying in Trouble is a live installation and a long-lasting performance created by Maria Proshkovska. The project explores the fragility and resilience of the idea of a common shelter as a symbolic space of safety in times of war, loss of home, forced displacement and existential instability. The artistic expression appears in the form of a corporeal, physical dialogue with the material and the environment, in a constant balance between destruction and the attempt to build. The project refers to the traditions of co-creation inherent in both Ukrainian and Bulgarian culture, in particular to the archaic practice of making saman for housing construction – a mixture of clay, sand, straw and water. In Proshkovska’s work, this once utilitarian process takes on a symbolic, almost ritualistic meaning: at dawn, in front of the audience, the artist kneads the material and builds a temporary structure – an image of a home, a shelter, a place where one can stay with oneself. Sea water from the Black Sea gives the material a personal dimension – it is ‘saturated’ with memories of childhood summer moments spent in the now occupied Crimea.
In this way, the material connects the personal with the local and transforms into a collective body of memory. Balchyk himself becomes not only a place of action, but a full-fledged co-author in the work. Philosophically, Staying in Trouble not only draws on Donna Haraway’s ideas about the need to ‘stay with the trouble’, but also questions the very possibility of doing so together. The artist suggests not avoiding complex, painful topics, but living them together – in interaction. She diligently builds without stopping, despite the awareness of inevitable destruction. Demonstratively working alone, she brings herself to exhaustion, emphasising the impossibility of individual resistance where collective action would be sufficient. Her gesture is not only an attempt to be with the trauma without hopeless attempts to ‘curing’ it right in the middle of the destroyment, but also an open question: who is responsible for our common shelter?
The performative creation turns into a state of meditation, where every movement is not only a gesture, but also a question: Is it possible to build a shelter in a world that is constantly collapsing? Is safety ever attainable, or is it just a temporary illusion? The installation gradually disappears – dissolves under the influence of wind, sun, time, and is licked away by the salty tongue of the sea waves. Thus, it not only reflects the vulnerability of living space, but also becomes a part of the landscape, immersed in contexts where there are no clear boundaries. With this comes the realisation that the difference between safety and destruction is an illusion. ‘Being in trouble’ is not just an act of artistic expression, but an open space for coexistence, memory, reflection and collective questioning:
Can we shelter each other if the world turns into ruins?