Memory Room
performative architectural installation prototype
by Anna Bogomolova (NL /UA), Mariana Berezovska (DE/UA) and Maksym Eristavi (CZ/UA)
You’ve heard of the British and French empires. But the largest colonial empire still standing — the Russian — is rarely discussed.
Memory Room is a performative architectural installation drawing on the award-winning book Russian Colonialism 101, as well as public lectures, archival research, and collected testimonies by Ukrainian journalist and author Maksym Eristavi (CZ/UA), which analyse how long-term narrative strategies shape disengagement, polarisation, and democratic fatigue across Europe.
The project is an international collaboration between design and multimedia communication professionals, led by creative producers Mariana Berezovska (DE/UA) and Anna Bogomolova (NL/UA).
Mariana works closely with Maksym to translate his extensive journalistic research into spatial and audiovisual storytelling, focusing on comparable narratives and psychological patterns familiar to European audiences from their own social and media environments.
Anna directs and produces the audiovisual content of the installation, making it accessible and engaging, especially for younger audiences. Working with the creative technology design studio u2203 (UA) and production studio Popkraft (NL), she develops spatial installation mock-ups and scenography concepts.
Their goal is to create a concept design and a prototype for a physical, walk-in spatial installation where visitors can experience how patterns explored in Russian Colonialism 101 — extermination, gaslighting, erasure, and intimidation — are produced, normalised, and internalised throughout Ukrainian and European societies.
As a performative architectural installation, Memory Room is designed as a speculative composite interior — scenographically arranged furniture, objects, textiles, and printed materials from personal, communal, and institutional contexts—combined with multimedia storytelling from Eristavi's research. Using architectural and interior design as narrative tools, this installation creates an intimate, immersive experience where audiences can explore concepts of memory and examples of political manipulation, and learn to recognise patterns and continuities of colonial structures and their influence across European culture and media.
The project will develop an exhibition-ready installation prototype, realised through physical mock-ups and/or digital visualisations paired with narrative audiovisual content, as a step towards the full-scale implementation of the work for exhibition in Germany, the Netherlands, and Ukraine.
Anna Bogomolova (NL /UA) anna@blitzkickers.com
Mariana Berezovska (DE/UA) hello@marianaberezovska.com
Maksym Eristavi (CZ/UA) team.eristavi@gmail.com