- Main
- Artists' works
- Load-Bearing Wall, 2025
Khozhai Daria
Load-Bearing Wall originates from the image of the Soviet “wall unit” (stinka) — a furniture structure that for decades functioned as an emotional and ideological wall within Soviet and post-Soviet homes. The heavy lacquered cabinet with mirrored vitrines stored the “proper” objects: untouched crystal as a symbol of an unattainable dream of luxury, rewritten and censored books, and family relics. It reflected not only the interior of the home but also a model of the citizen — silent, obedient, and shaped by the system.
In the installation, an original wall unit from the 1980s is transformed into a 1:18 scale dollhouse model of a typical Soviet apartment block. Rather than a nostalgic reconstruction, it reveals an ideological structure: an interior space shaped by fear, loss, survival, and imposed identity.
Inside, parasites appear — larvae slowly eating through the wood. They become a metaphor for the imperial system that people allowed into their homes and gradually grew accustomed to. It functioned through rewritten history and normalized control. The destruction occurred invisibly, from within. What once existed as cultural erasure, imposed identity, and political dependency has now evolved into direct military aggression.
Load-Bearing Wall speaks about how colonial legacy continues to exist within everyday structures and collective memory. Through the architectural model, material degradation, and the repeated gesture of destruction, the work creates a space where truths long hidden behind walls — both literally and symbolically — can be revealed.
Ukrainian interdisciplinary artist and architect currently based in Amsterdam, with a background in Art (Kyiv Academy of Visual Arts), Architecture (Politecnico di Milano), and Cognitive Science (Amsterdam Medical Centre).
For six years, she has been developing a situation-specific approach by creating large-scale, site-, time-, and context-specific art installations as part of the core team at RAAAF. At the same time, she has conducted self-initiated research on Memory as both an individual, embodied experience and a collective, social phenomenon.
Her professional and personal experience led her to fuse experimental craftsmanship and architectural research with insights from academic psychology in her own artistic practice. She uses this approach to recognize and memorialize emotionally loaded spaces that have suffered profound traumatic events such as displacement, absence, and pain.
“Khozhai’s works are deeply personal translations of the public experience of loss and collective trauma. She uses her own sensitive reflections, memories and relationships to the past and present as a lens through which she examines the wider position and reflects on major problems at a global scale. She tries to facilitate environmental, social, and political activism through art. By materializing and exposing the collective turning points of our century.” – Nadine Snijders.
“That makes Khozhai’s work both artistically, historically, and educationally valuable. And helps to navigate grief and mourning in a world so defined by loss.” – Laurien Saraber (AFK).
She uses architectural (often immersive 1:1) scale models as her main artistic medium, because of their strong communicative, symbolic, and emotional power and their ability not only to materialize spaces but also to reveal the deeper stories often hidden behind façades.
She explores ideas of Memory, Nostalgia, and Sentimentality through the emotional significance of simple and familiar materials with their own stories and connections, able to trigger personal memories and activate collective ones. Her process of making is usually repetitive and obsessive, resembling rituals and traditions rooted in diverse heritages.
