Sept. 15, 2025, 8:49 a.m.
(The artwork "Black Cloud". PHOTO: Gurpreet Chawla/ dezeen.com)
Two Ukrainian artworks - Black Cloud and Point of Unity - were included in the list of the most impressive works at the Burning Man 2025 festival in the United States. Kherson resident and executive producer Maria Moroz contributed to the creation of Black Cloud.
The British online architecture and design publication Deezen has published a selection of nine artworks.
Black Cloud by artist Oleksiy Say is the first on the list. It was a large-scale inflatable installation set in the desert and complemented by an audio landscape with sirens and war sounds. On August 24, Ukraine's Independence Day, a storm tore the cloud apart, which, according to the organizers, only emphasized its symbolism-the theme of destruction and loss.
Another Ukrainian art object is "Point of Unity" by artist and lighting designer Mykola Kabluk. It is a metal structure with an oculus in the center that reflects light during the day and turns into a stage for light shows at night. According to the author's idea, the work explores complex optical effects.
The Black Cloud artwork, destroyed by the elements, was later redesigned and presented at Burning Man in a new form - in the form of the inscription "No Fate". The first sketch of the installation appeared back in November 2024: back then, Oleksiy Say drew a black cloud on a sheet of paper, and later a three-dimensional shape was created from fabric, which was blown up by seven fans.
The installation was 15 meters high, 17 meters wide, and 30 meters long. The thundercloud consisted of 45 interconnected inflatable forms weighing 8 tons, which inflated more than 2,500 cubic meters of air. Inside, there were 20 strobe lights that flashed to imitate lightning, and a musical composition of real sounds of the war in Ukraine was to be played over the desert, a symbol of threat and destruction.
Last year, at the Burning Man 2024 festival, Ukrainian artists Oleksiy Say and Vitaliy Deynega showed an installation of shot road signs and damaged objects, laying out the phrase"I'm Fine."
They used real artifacts of war from the de-occupied territories: "pedestrian crossing" and "beware of children!" signs, a piece of a shopping center, broken fences, solar panels, and large road signs with the names of settlements from Velyka Krynytsia to Kherson, Chernihiv, and Kharkiv.
Анна Бальчінос