About
First Aid for Emptiness explores restoration as an artistic and symbolic act of care.
Using rescued gilded frames that are too fragile to restore conventionally, I wrap them in medical bandages, stabilising rather than repairing them. The gesture borrows the language and methods of conservation while transforming them into a contemporary artistic practice.
The project asks:
- Can restoration become a contemporary artistic language?
- Can care itself become a creative medium?
- How do we care for what cannot be restored?
- What role can artists play in preserving collective memory?
- Can artistic practice become a form of symbolic restoration?
- Can damaged objects teach us new ways of caring?
- What remains when reality becomes more powerful than representation?
- What does it mean to preserve absence?
The Method
Inspired by the conservation of historic buildings, museum collections, and cultural heritage, First Aid for Emptiness positions restoration not only as a technical discipline but also as a symbolic practice of care, remembrance, and hope.
Current Research Interests
- Restoration & Conservation
- Cultural Heritage
- Memory Studies
- Museum Practice
- Heritage in Conflict
- Care Ethics
- Contemporary Art
- Peacebuilding
Artistic statement
War destroys cities, people, memory, and home.
But emptiness does not belong to war alone. It also emerges from conflict, displacement, loss, and the uncertainty of living through a permacrisis.
It exists in places, in people, and in artists.
After the outbreak of the war, I stopped painting.
Colours no longer seemed enough.
Today, I give emptiness a frame.
Through the repetitive act of wrapping fragile, crumbling frames in medical bandages, they have become metaphorical self-portraits—as if they, too, could still be saved.
They are almost impossible to preserve.
They are too fragile.
They keep crumbling.
Still, I continue.
Still, I hope.
With every layer of bandage, I dress a wound that is not only theirs, but also mine.
I keep asking myself:
What can an artist do when reality has become the most powerful image?
When will colour return to the world?
