Artwork description: One Christmas I was browsing through old photo albums with my family. We were looking at my mother’s and her kindergarten friends’ drawings. I noticed that a lot of the drawings were filled with symbols of the Soviet Union: stars, red flags, hammers and sickles, and war imagery. The drawings portrayed life in the Soviet Union as ideal and romantic. I chose to recreate these drawings in my glass art. The symbols of the Soviet Union were covered in black fabric which I associate with barbed wire or cracks in the image. I used colors that resembled the Soviet Union flag. This way I want to narrow the audience’s field of view and leave only the illusion of the Soviet Union. In my art, I try to create an illusion that urges the viewer to start thinking instead of only looking. On our first days in the world, we get familiar with our surroundings by using our senses, in this case – sight. We analyze and think about the things we see with the help of our past experiences which create not only physiological but also psychological stimulus. Therefore, I think that our sight is necessary for analyzing and thinking. While I was researching my topic of interest, I began portraying more abstract imagery. During this project, I tried out glass lamination technology. With the help of this technology, I could shatter the glass and laminate it again. I put mirrors behind my art, so the audience could see themselves while looking at my work. In the forefront – the viewer sees a shattered image in the glass, in the background – themselves. You can interpret this way of exhibiting my art in many ways. For example, the viewer can interpret themselves as freedom. It is no secret that all of us are tied to our work, some of us feel like we depend on something. Therefore, the cracks in the images could be a metaphor for feeling imprisoned in our lives.