Babi Yar
At the Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, Khrzhanovskiy's work brought together memorial architecture, art installation, and public acts of remembrance.
The projects developed in Kyiv were unveiled over several stages between 2020 and 2021, each one taking a different formal approach to memory.
Memorial timeline
- September 2020
Mirror Field was unveiled on the 79th anniversary of the Babi Yar massacre in the presence of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
- January 2021
Tree was unveiled on International Holocaust Memorial Day at the site of Babi Yar.
- May 2021
The wooden synagogue Place for Reflection opened at the site and was later shortlisted in the Cultural Building category of the Dezeen Awards.
- October 2021
At the 80th anniversary of the massacre, the presidents of Ukraine, Israel, and Germany inaugurated a memorial center and opened the Crystal Crying Wall by Marina Abramovic.
Context
These projects formed part of a broader attempt to think about remembrance through sound, light, structure, and public encounter rather than through monument alone.
In this part of Khrzhanovskiy's work, architecture and memory were not separate concerns but two parts of the same ongoing investigation.