Ton Melnyk & Masha Ravlyk
MERIHAKAMATKAT KAKSI
Ulkoilmanäyttely / Outdoor Exhibition 8.8.—27.9.

INSTALLATION / ARTWORKS

Carpet-Tapestry “Our Queer Family”

Ton Melnyk & Masha Ravlyk
2024-2026

Hand weaving
Cotton, wool, acrylic and mixed yarn

Size 190x133 cm. 

This project is about queer community of friends and comrades that was formed around Ton and Masha’s ReSew sewing cooperative in Kyiv in 2016-2022. 

“We have been weaving Our Queer Family tapestry from spring 2024 to summer 2026 because we were missing our community that was created when we lived in Kyiv. Right now due to the war many people from this community live in different cities and countries, therefore, we have a small opportunity to meet. 

Through this work we want to keep memories about our friends and to archive our common queer history. We are convinced that it is very important to tell our stories on our own. Like queer people, we often meet a lack of representation in society. Our history disappears. Our blood families might not be proud of us.
For the project we are using a group photo taken in our studio in Kyiv, which we had before the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It is collage: some portraits were added to the initial picture when creating the sketch. There are 20 people: Svitlana, Nastya, Sveta, Rina, Ton, Masha, Vishnia, Yana, Galka, Mariam, Timur, Ira, geo, Liza, Nadyia, Yana, Katya, Syaivo, Yulia, Ania.” 

The project was partly supported by Arts Promotion Center Finland, Outsider Art Festival, interns Emma, Ani and Nuppu, our friends and comrades who believed in us and everybody who followed the creation of the artwork during 2 years.
Ton Melnyk is an independent multidisciplinary artist and queer feminist activist from Kyiv now living in Helsinki-Espoo. They graduated from Kyiv National University of Technology and Design with a Master in Art degree. Recently Melnyk’s works were shown at Outsider Art Festival 2024 and 2025 in Helsinki, GoEast SYMPOSIUM, The Other Queers in Wiesbaden and Fabrika festival in Copenhagen. Their mediums are: textiles, clothes, performance, stand-up, video, participatory and curatorial practices. Melnyk works with themes of labour rights, migration, body liberation, issues of discrimination and ways to overcome it, relationships between human and nonhuman creatures, climate change and antiwar topics. Melnyk is co-founder of Sewing cooperative ReSew -participatory project about the world they want to live in: without violence, exploitation, built on horizontal relationships, mutual aid and the value of every life creature and surrounding. Works in duet with Masha Ravlyk.

Masha Ravlyk is an artist, curator, activist, queer and double migrant. They were born in the USSR near the Volga river (Russia nowadays), graduated from St.Petersburg state university, the faculty of liberal arts and sciences, art criticism and curatorship program, and got a master degree. Lived in Kyiv 2016-2022. Now has temporary protection in Finland, lives in Helsinki-Espoo with Ton Melnyk and their cats Kvirusia and Shpulia. Masha is co-founder and participant of two sewing cooperatives: Shvemy and ReSew. Works in duet with Ton Melnyk as well as individually. Their media are textile, clothes, video, performance, stand-up participatory practices. The main topics are anti-war, labor rights, alternative economy, resistance against capitalism and patriarchy, ecology, migration, poverty, self-care, queer community subculture. They insist that all art is political.

Queerness in the eyes of the beholder scarf-poster 

Ton Melnyk

2020

Silk, batik

Size 116x124 cm.

In October 2020 Ton held workshops on creating scarves-posters for queer community in Kyiv. Participants were proposed to create their own scarf with a personal statement, slogan or to reproduce some poster that was used on an important action for the person.

 

This scarf Ton made by themselves and for themselves. For it they took a picture that was developed as a sticker in Telegram. It clearly reflects their desire to see the world in the way they want to live in: without patriarchy, hierarchy, wars, violence, exploitation of human and nature resources, built on principles of equality, respect and care of each other and environment. That is what queerness is for Ton in a deeper way. This meaning is as transparent and fragile as their scarf. However when they think and talk from this perspective it works in quite a supportive and empowering way.  
The scarf participated in the art exhibition "Not by default" during the Queer Forum 2021 in Kherson, Ukraine.

Love your friend(s), appreciate your friend(s)! 
banner

Ton Melnyk & Masha Ravlyk

2019

Fabric, laces, acrylic paints

Size 123x96 cm. 

The banner was created for the Queer Forum 2019 during the ReSew workshop on creating banners in Kherson. The inscription on the banner is a quotation from the song of the band Razmytaia povestka (eng.: blurred agenda). 

Make love, be queer, denaturalize yourself*! banner

Collective work 

2017

Fabrics, applique

Size 141x225 cm.

The banner was created for the Kyiv Pride march 2017 in the framework of queer-anarchist block. 

*denaturalize yourself - in translation to Ukrainian “денатуралізуйся” - is a word game relating to the spoken naming of straight people “натурал”, which directly translates as “natural”. Basically the phrase means “become not straight”.

Slug costume

Masha Ravlyk

2019

Textiles, sewing

The slug was created in May 2019 in Kyiv. It is shapeless, not restricting movements, bright something, with a zipper, with six pockets, with a hood with horns. 

Migrant's problems exhausted Masha and spawned a desire not to be a human. Masha decided sometimes to be a slug. Because they prefer to work, eat, gather, write, wash, clean up slowly, or maybe just at a speed convenient for them. A kind of protest against the existing unfair political, economical and social systems. The Slug costume was exhibited and also used for artistic performances and political demos.

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