This is a must watch. You have never seen anything like it. It was forwarded to me by a colleague.
This video shows the winner of ” Ukraine’s Got Talent”, Kseniya Simonova, 24, drawing a series of pictures on an illuminated sand table showing how ordinary people were affected by the German invasion during World War II. Her talent, which admittedly is a strange one, is mesmeric to watch.
The images, projected onto a large screen, moved many in the audience to tears and she won the top prize of about £75,000.
She begins by creating a scene showing a couple sitting holding hands on a bench under a starry sky, but then warplanes appear and the happy scene is obliterated.
It is replaced by a woman’s face crying, but then a baby arrives and the woman smiles again. Once again war returns and Miss Simonova throws the sand into chaos from which a young woman’s face appears.
She quickly becomes an old widow, her face wrinkled and sad, before the image turns into a monument to an Unknown Soldier.
This outdoor scene becomes framed by a window as if the viewer is looking out on the monument from within a house.
In the final scene, a mother and child appear inside and a man standing outside, with his hands pressed against the glass, saying goodbye.
The Great Patriotic War, as it is called in Ukraine , resulted in one in four of the population being killed with eight to 11 million deaths out of a population of 42 million.
Kseniya Simonova says:
“I find it difficult enough to create art using paper and pencils or paintbrushes, but using sand and fingers is beyond me. The art, especially when the war is used as the subject matter, even brings some audience members to tears. And there’s surely no bigger compliment.”
Please take time out to see this amazing piece of art. Think about it often, particularly when you watch something vapid like American Idol
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks Kev for this! It and she mesmerized me. As a photo nut I invite you as a nut to see http://www.reuters.com and look at its collection of photos of the aughts and of 2009. Some will move you, most will engage you. Happy new Year, do good work.
Cbe
Kevin… Wow that was cool.
Not to take away from the serious subject matter in the clip… But, I may need to challenge myself and see how easy/hard this is to do… As the guy from the “sandbox” there may be an appropriate application of this in my business.
Exactly! One of the many questions is how she thought to do it in the first place?