VARVARA UHLIK

SCULPTURE & INSTALLATION:

PLAY GROUND II
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LYOH
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PLAY GROUND
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SWAN
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DIGITAL (AFTER)
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PLAYLAND
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PHOTOGRAPHY:

SANATORIUM CRIMEA
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SUNSHINE, HOW ARE YOU?
^(2023-2024)
SLAV GAZE
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SANATORIUM CRIMEA

(2026)

In this body of work, Uhlik digitally alters analogue photographs from her family's own archive of holiday imagery. The original analogue photographs were taken at a Soviet military resort, which continues to be operated by Russia today, on the Crimean Peninsula. Uhlik's aunt worked at the resort, which allowed her family access to this site and where she would spend Summer holidays as a child. Uhlik alters these images to remove the human figures, leaving just a crude outline as human presence is dissolved from the work. Ghost-like figures posing in gardens, sitting in deck chairs, or caught unawares at the beach make reference to notions of access and the fragility of memory. No longer able to visit a site of her childhood following the occupation of Crimea from 2014, the photographs act as vestiges of place for the artist, but also as exposures into a hidden world.

Through removing the figures from her images, Uhlik engages with ideas of photographic manipulation, a prevalent and state sanctioned practice in Soviet history, to reveal how both collective and personal memories can be constructed through the medium of photography. In an age where photographs increasingly act as placeholders for memory and experience, Uhlik's work lays bare the fragility of this approach.

– Text by Huxley-Parlour.

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Sanatorium Crimea (2026)

Installation view, Huxley-Parlour, London, 2026