Adonis Vernalis Dreamings
collage, writing, textile prints, risograph prints, performance
with thanks to: south/south movement, Ziemniaki i, IWM
Adonis Vernalis Dreamings
—
Марева Горицвіту Весняного
—
began as a series of collages in 2021 attempting to renarrate the regional history of my kin-region Kropyvnychchyna (Kirovohrad oblast) in central Ukraine, moving beyond the conventional narratives of the “productive land” and “hardworking people.” It since then grew into a body of written works, spanning essay, academic book chapter, flash fiction and performance. Please see the full list of works at the bottom of this page.
“Staying with this desire to understand my kin-region through the scale of a singular plant, I wondered what would be a way of exploring Adonis vernalis that is not strictly botanical, ecological or herbalist. When I started making the collages, I had the colour and the name first: zhovto-hariachyi, hot-yellow and mareva, dreamings. The shape and contents followed. The more I thought about the layers of history of my kin-region, the more I became captivated by the idea of human-vegetal dreaming. Ideas take you places and this one took me if not yet to the Ukrainian steppes physically, into the dreamings of it.
In Ukrainian folklore dreams can often be seen as a site for intergenerational learning: ancestors may come to you in your dream to warn you about something, to give advice, to teach. “Wisdom that comes through the night,” says one of Olha Kobylianska characters in her 1902 novel “Land” referring to learning while dreaming. What was here before me, before I started dreaming that may be seeping into my dreams now? And what do those who have been here much longer dream of?”
“Staying with this desire to understand my kin-region through the scale of a singular plant, I wondered what would be a way of exploring Adonis vernalis that is not strictly botanical, ecological or herbalist. When I started making the collages, I had the colour and the name first: zhovto-hariachyi, hot-yellow and mareva, dreamings. The shape and contents followed. The more I thought about the layers of history of my kin-region, the more I became captivated by the idea of human-vegetal dreaming. Ideas take you places and this one took me if not yet to the Ukrainian steppes physically, into the dreamings of it.
In Ukrainian folklore dreams can often be seen as a site for intergenerational learning: ancestors may come to you in your dream to warn you about something, to give advice, to teach. “Wisdom that comes through the night,” says one of Olha Kobylianska characters in her 1902 novel “Land” referring to learning while dreaming. What was here before me, before I started dreaming that may be seeping into my dreams now? And what do those who have been here much longer dream of?”
—
Adonis vernalis dreamings: (re)making kin with a place, essay, part of the
“Beyond the colonial vortex of the ‘West’: Subverting non-western imperialisms before and after 24 February 2022” dialogues curated by the south/south movement, 2023
“Beyond the colonial vortex of the ‘West’: Subverting non-western imperialisms before and after 24 February 2022” dialogues curated by the south/south movement, 2023
Into kin-regions with Adonis vernalis
—
book chapter, edited volume “Terra Invicta: Ukrainian Wartime Reimaginings for a Habitable Earth”, ed. Adrian Ivakhiv, McGill-Queen’s University Press, forthcoming 2025. Read excerpts on internodes / міжвузля
Agros, Eros and Thanatos — flash fiction, in the "I Dream of the Absinthium Field", Ziemniaki i, 2024
Find me dream-walking in the steppes: from landscapes to kin-regions — panel presentation, Ukraine’s Altered Landscapes: Losing and Recovering Alterity in the Face of War, IWM, Vienna, Austria, 2023
Find me dream-walking in the steppes, tea ceremony and a reading, Living-with Feral Ecologies. A Festival, Helsinki Design Week, Finland, 2023
Adonis vernalis dreamings: (re)making kin with a place, essay, part of the “Beyond the colonial vortex of the ‘West’: Subverting non-western imperialisms before and after 24 February 2022” dialogues curated by the south/south movement, 2023
i dream to see the steppe again, performance and reading with Darya Tsymbalyuk, Sett Studios, Edinburgh, Scotland, 2022
Adonis Vernalis Dreamings — collage series, 2021-2022
Agros, Eros and Thanatos — flash fiction, in the "I Dream of the Absinthium Field", Ziemniaki i, 2024
Find me dream-walking in the steppes: from landscapes to kin-regions — panel presentation, Ukraine’s Altered Landscapes: Losing and Recovering Alterity in the Face of War, IWM, Vienna, Austria, 2023
Find me dream-walking in the steppes, tea ceremony and a reading, Living-with Feral Ecologies. A Festival, Helsinki Design Week, Finland, 2023
Adonis vernalis dreamings: (re)making kin with a place, essay, part of the “Beyond the colonial vortex of the ‘West’: Subverting non-western imperialisms before and after 24 February 2022” dialogues curated by the south/south movement, 2023
i dream to see the steppe again, performance and reading with Darya Tsymbalyuk, Sett Studios, Edinburgh, Scotland, 2022
Adonis Vernalis Dreamings — collage series, 2021-2022