Bortnytsia Station of Aeration (BSA) is one of the largest treatment facilities in the Eastern Europe and the only wastewater treatment plant in Kyiv city. It was built in the 60s of the twentieth century, and now the level of wear of equipment and buildings comprises about 80%. Every day the station cleans from 700 thousand to 900 thousand cubic meters of wastewater, and its silt fields occupy a total area of over 272 hectares. For almost 60 years of operation of the station on sedimentation tanks and silt fields, the amount of smelly sludge has accumulated, which exceed the technical capacity of the station almost twice and its quantity is growing every day. Today, Kyiv city is very close to the station, and with the accession of the village of Bortnychi into the city, the windows of some new buildings directly face the facilities of the aeration station. In combination with its closest neighbor, the “Energy” incinerator plant, the aeration station is one of the Kyiv’s most problematic environmental places. As of today about 300 thousand people inhabit in the zone of its vapors which is 12% of the total population of Kyiv, which inhale the stinking poisonous fumes from the sedimentation tanks of the station.
The Government of Japan agreed to provide a loan for the reconstruction of the BSA in 2015, but real reconstruction works have not yet been started.
Having visited BSA and carried out own research of the station’s place with the help of drone photography, the artist offers the society her own vision of BSA reconstruction options. Based on the artist’s imagination, sewage tanks are transformed into post-supremacist circles in a public gallery (project №1), lakes inhabited by flamingos (project №2) or public swimming pools with a recreation area (project №3). The artist offers the viewers to experience the pleasure of enjoying the unattractive results of their activities, rather than hiding them behind the mask of the apparent well-being of civilization and the comfort living in the environment.
The artwork consists of 3 research projects of reconstruction
