Grankulla stads kulturtjänster ville i våras erbjuda ett arbetsrum på Villa Junghans för lokala kulturprojekt. I husets övre våning finns ett rum på cirka 20 kvadratmeter som stått tomt och som kan användas som arbetsutrymme eller ateljé. Nu har den första konstnären “flyttat in”. Hon heter Nyata Shapovalova och kommer från Ukraina. Läs hennes historia på engelska nedan. Texten har skrivits av Cecilia McMullen, kulturtjänstansvarig.
In June 2023 the cultural Services opened up the call for local artists to get to use a space at Villa Junghans in a new artist residency cooperation. An impressive list of professionals and skilled artists applied, and the wellbeing committee awarded the first residency to the wool artist Nyata Shapovalova for fall 2023 and spring 2024.
During this fall Nyata has settled into the studio at Villa Junghans, where she has created a cosy creative bubble, and she says that receiving a studio of her own from the city is like an answer to her prayers. Sometimes a series of dramatic events brings a person to facing one’s ambitions and forces them to take themselves and their art seriously and this is where she finds herself right now. And in her case the events that has brought her to this space have been very dramatic indeed. When the bombs started falling over Nyatas family’s home in February 2022 she did not understand what was happening. She could not find information about what was going on from her family or from her friends, everyone was just as shocked and surprised as she was. After the attack Nyata and son took refuge in the basement of their apartment building with the other residents of the house for weeks. They had no idea of what to do or where to go and initially most of them had no intention of leaving the country. But as they learned more about the situation and about Russia’s war against the country, the clearer the necessity to leave became. So Nyata and her son left everything they had behind them and ended up in a new country and eventually in Kauniainen.
Their journey was filled with loss, horror and pain and Nyata says that the experience of finding herself in a new country without the comfort of being anyone’s spouse, anyone’s daughter and without her circle of friends still leaves her with a feeling of hope, gratitude and purpose. She wants to pay back to the tax payers who every month make sure that her son and herself have the opportunity to live in safety. She applied for the work room scholarship so that she can continue to work on her wool art and create an exhibition about her experience of the war. In her application she wrote:
– I want to show the war through my eyes, to describe my personal path and my feelings. The topics of loss of roots, language, loneliness and hope, a new beginning will be touched upon. The people in Finland have helped me and my son a lot to recover from the horrors of the war and start building a new life here in Kauniainen. It showed us that there is always hope, and that the strength and courage to move forward sometimes comes when a little understanding and warmth is shown to a person who is in despair.
Later this fall you will receive more information about when the studio at Villa Junghans will be open to the public and there will also be more collaborations between the Cultural services and Nyata Shapovalova to come.