Chips: Ukrainian naive mosaics, 1950–90

Photobook "Chips: Ukrainian naive mosaics, 1950–90", created by photographer Yevhen Nikiforov and art historian Polina Baitsym, records a little-known phenomenon that took place on the periphery of art and social life.

The archive, collected between 2013 and 2023, turned into a book in 2019, presents mosaics by famous and unknown authors in a state of semi-decomposition: when they lose their original freshness, gradually collapse or sink into the lower layers of facades and cityscapes . These naive mosaics are often an everyday background for local residents or a good material in the transformation processes of public spaces. In the book, they become the subject of attention as a phenomenon that raises questions about memory and space, past and present, individual self-expression and cultural imitation. In addition, the book captures the fragility of the monumental, which, like chips, finally becomes tiny pieces at the bottom of the stack.