Eyelashes and Sand Crystals

The Herbarium of Kherson State University, one of the largest collections of lichens, vascular, and bryophyte plants from southern Ukraine and Crimea, was evacuated to Precarpathian National University in Ivano-Frankivsk after Kherson’s deoccupation. The film Eyelashes and Sand Crystals focuses on the unique case of the "herbarium in exile" and the work of scholars who continue collecting samples despite lacking a place to store them. It is an experiment to translate visually the role of Kherson’s collection in the distorted temporality of war: where the present competes with the past, and where memory itself is threatened.