Sculpture of war-mutilated Ukrainian road signs installed at Burning Man

The Ukrainian Witness project's Instagram account reports.

On Sunday, August 25, a large-scale independent art festival Burning Man 2024 started in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada, USA. The Ukrainian Witness media project presented a new installation called I'm Fine at the event.

This year's Ukrainian installation is 32 meters long, 7 meters high, and weighs more than 10 tons. It was created by Ukrainian artist Oleksiy Say and Ukrainian Witness founder Vitaliy Deineha.

“The installation is created from real war artifacts collected in the de-occupied territories. These are shot street signs, solar panels, satellite dishes, destroyed city signs and broken fences. The work illustrates to the world the devastating consequences of the Russian Federation's armed aggression, which destroyed more than 2024 objects of Ukraine's cultural heritage, including libraries, theaters and art educational centers. Of these, 334 objects were completely destroyed and cannot be restored. The scale of the installation allows us to feel the depth of the human stories behind these signs,” Ukrainian Witness said.

"The huge sculpture of war-torn road signs, fences and gates from different regions of Ukraine is inspired by the ironic meme 'I'm Fine' - the answer that every Ukrainian has been giving to the question 'How are you?' for over a decade. 'Behind every I'm Fine is a story of war,'” the creators of the installation note.

“The I'm Fine sculpture unveiled by Ukrainian Witness symbolizes how Ukraine is withstanding the ongoing war. The installation shows what can be hidden behind the words 'I'm fine': our true mood, stories of resilience and personal experience,” Ukraine's official Instagram account added.