«…Letters to the nature, from Decay Exercises series that I’ve been developing at Norwegian Bio Art Arena residency in Ås, Norway. As an artist who works with words, written and spoken, I’ve been thinking a lot about the words I could address to the nature itself, about the questions I could ask the soil, the water, plants, insects, animals, birds. And I understood that what bothers me the most – and I think every human being has the same problem – is my own mortality. After the full scale invasion, I finally felt the inevitable reality of death and how in fact it is close to me. And it seems so scary and actually very unfair that one has to die and can do nothing about it. Here and there I desperately try to find an answer – “Why do I HAVE TO die?”, as if it could help me to gain more control over my life, as if it prevents me from dying unexpectedly and thus unprepared. Which doesn’t seem to bother any other creatures on this planet at all, and this is also unfair. Being a human is so hard. But guess what – observing nature and asking it questions during all this time turned out to be very helpful, even therapeutic. I had no hope for any answers really, but I got one. When I wrote for example to the rain, to the sea, to the soil, to the bees, asking them why do I have to die, I felt that by routinely decomposing, consuming, dissolving my words – nothing special, just simple physics and chemistry! – they answered me: “Do you ACTUALLY have to?”. Is there death at all, as we understand it – death as the end of existence? To the nature, no. Death is just a transformational point, when you stop being one and turn into something else. And decay is just a process of changing and rebirth. My letters, my questions, my words, turned to something else, as everything in the universe does. They dissolved in the rain and decayed in the soil to become fertilizer and food for other living beings. The bees consumed them and will soon turn them into honey. And this is beautiful. And the death doesn’t seem so unfair anymore – as it provides material for the new life. What I can do is to try and become the best material possible…»

«…The sea depths always scared me. When I felt myself in complete insecurity and disorientation I would always associate it with the state of being abandoned amidst the ocean, when you desperately try to stay afloat, but have nothing to stick to, and can’t find any surface underneath to put your feet on. And basically it’s your panic and fear, fear of uncertainty, of darkness, silence and emptiness, what drags you down. While there, even in the deepest depths, there’s no darkness – it is full of light, but in another spectrums. There’s no silence, it’s just our ears that can’t catch all this music playing underwater (or we are just not really into the style). And of course there’s no emptiness – billions and billions of living creatures inhabit this place. So is there actually death, as “stop-being”, as “non-existence”? The sea would definitely answer no. In fact, it’s the sea that used to be our home millions of years ago. Maybe someday it will take us all back to its waters, thus finishing the era of humanity and giving a beginning to something completely new…»

«…This work is especially significant for me because to create it I needed to overcome my life-long phobia of bees. Actually it was the bees who helped me come up with this whole idea of writing letters with the question “Why do I have to die?” to the nature. By literally eating my words to later turn them into a honey – they show me clearly that death is not the end, but a point or rather a process of transformation, rebirth into something else. Like these words, I myself will someday become a food for other living creatures. And, to go further, my words, my ideas will become a food, a fertilizer on which new words and ideas will grow. This is what gives me hope that nothing is in vain, and the understanding that despite death and life are very chaotic and beyond our control, there is definitely something that I can do – to do my best to become a good fertilizer, so that what will grow from me will grow strong, healthy and happy. A good honey will feed more good bees who then will produce even better honey, to feed the new ones. And I will be a part of it, forever, at least till the day when the whole world comes to an end (and even then I’m not sure that everything won’t start all over again)…»