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Anastasiia Mamai
The project Time Machine is made as an exact replica of a real train ticket. Every day a train departs from Vienna to Kyiv at the same time and from the same platform — something well known to those traveling to Ukraine. There are only two carriages, yet the train runs daily. Tickets are difficult to obtain at the ticket office; they must be purchased online at night, exactly 24 days before departure, waiting for them to appear on sale.
In 2023, I attempted to buy such a ticket myself in order to travel home for the first time. After leaving Ukraine in haste, I experienced disruptions in my perception of time. Months passed, yet it felt like only two months. Time froze and stood still, and so I imagined and invented my own time machine — a ticket home to Kyiv.
This ticket became my personal time machine — and it worked. After my first trip, things almost returned to their places. Now the ticket has acquired new meanings. On the one hand, I always have a ticket — a porcelain one, like a statue: beautiful, but with this ticket you can never actually travel home. It speaks about possibility and impossibility at the same time.
The project also highlights the theme of migrants — of whom there are now more than 500,000 people.
The ticket is made from thin porcelain. Using silkscreen printing, I apply the exact dates and markings of a real ticket, with two important distinctions. In the passenger field it reads: “Citizen of Ukraine” and “Child of Ukraine.”
1990 — Born in Kyiv, Ukraine
2012 — Graduated from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv with a Master’s degree in Psychology
2017 — Self-education and private studies with leading Ukrainian and international artists, including Lisa Portnoy, Andrii Kyrychenko, Yurii Musatov, Oleksandr Shafirov, and Alberto Bustos
2019 — Opened her own studio and began conducting group and individual workshops for adults and children
2021 — Graduated from MIM Business School, Kyiv
2021 — Participant in the Ceramic Art Week Group Exhibition, Kyiv
2022 — Graduated from Crafting Business Makers School (CBMS), Kyiv
2022 — Participant in the exhibition “What Is Far Is Near”, Gotické dvojce Gallery, Litoměřice
2022 — Finalist of the Go&Sell Project by Crafting Europe (Creative Europe Programme) and presentation at Maison&Objet, Paris
2022 — Began studies at the University of Art and Design Linz
2023 — Group exhibition “Jump With Us Into the Deep Water” at the old swimming pool in Gallneukirchen
2023 — Group exhibition “Healing”, Vienna
2023 — “Fusion of Versions: Uncovering Traces”, Austria/Ukraine collaborative project, Zirkusgasse, Vienna
2023 — Group exhibition “Jump With Us Into the Cold Water”, old swimming pool, Gallneukirchen, Austria
2023 — Group exhibition “February / Лютий”, supported by the Ukrainian Office in Vienna and curated by Veronika Dirnhofer (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna), with the support of the Austrian Ministry of Culture and the ERSTE Foundation
2024 — Nominee for the Kunstpreis Lentos Freunde Award, Lentos Art Museum, Linz
2024 — Exhibition of the social project “Time Machine” at Vienna Central Station, supported by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, Public Service and Sport (BMKÖS), the Ukrainian Office, and ÖBB (Austrian Federal Railways)
2024 — “TILO 2024”, Schloss Wolkersdorf, Austria
2026 — International traveling exhibition “elsewhereland. Contemporary Ukrainian Perspectives from Shifting Ground”, featuring ten Ukrainian artists, organized by Office Ukraine / tranzit.at, the Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs, and the Federal Ministry for Housing, Arts, Culture, Media and Sport. Austrian Cultural Forum, Budapest (January 23 – March 2026)
2026 — Group exhibition, Galerie Leftbank, February