Karina Synytsia

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Exhibition:
                  "WE’LL ADMIR
THE ORIGINAL LATER"Dim42, LCP "Lviv Radio", 2025. Lviv, Ukraine
Curator: Borys Filonenko THEY DIDN’T
        EXPECT THIS! In this work, created especially for the exhibition “We`ll Admire the Original After” at Dim 42, Karina Synytsia engages with the context of the building at Rynok Square, 42. The space, which had long been neglected, gradually reveals its history: during restoration sondages, Renaissance wooden beams, decorative arabesques from the era of the Galician autonomy within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as well as traces of Soviet and post-Soviet interventions, were discovered. For the artist, these architectural layers, studied before she began the wall-painting, became both material and metaphor—a kind of “archaeology of space,” where cracks, voids, and worn areas on the walls intertwine with narratives related to the history of paleontology. The story in the mural begins with the sea—with discoveries near the water—from which an imaginary topography gradually extends onto the land. The composition resembles a map—a fragmented chart of excavation sites where remains of ancient creatures might be found, and small stories unfold within simulated sondages—patches of the wall. Each fragment depicts a situation of discovering a dead body—a long-extinct animal—and a human reaction to the find.

The project incorporates printed materials and collages of children’s images, who appear as little archaeologists and paleontologists. They seem to “settle” within the cracks of the wall, embodying intuitive curiosity and a thirst for knowledge reminiscent of the story of Mary Anning—a self-taught child who became a renowned paleontologist. These figures transform the space into a place of play, exploration, and discovery.

One fragment of the mural references the story of Starunia. At the beginning of the 20th century, during the extraction of ozokerite—a rare natural mineral wax—workers raised from a depth of over 12 meters the carcass of an animal covered with skin and well-preserved soft tissues. Unaware of the find’s value, they broke the skeleton and bones, and divided the skin, which at that time was worth its weight in gold. Only later, when most of the specimen was lost, did scientists intervene. Today, the remains from Starunia—a mammoth and the first woolly rhinoceros—are preserved in the State Natural History Museum of the National Academy of Sciences in Lviv.

Next to the work, a text remains—a quote by Deborah Fogel, executed by Wlodko Kostyrko, created even before the opening of the first part of the exhibition:

“The material in the work of art became the empty space, which is formed through a thematic element of life.”

The wall-painting demonstrates how we perceive traces of the past—shells, the only remains of creatures that once lived within them, and fossils—impressions in stone that attest to life long gone but leaving an indelible trace of time.

Exhibition view of "We Will Admire the Original Later" at Dim42, LCP "Lviv Radio", 2025.
Photo: Roman Shyshak. Courtesy of the institution.

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