(Ukrainian Winter Song) 

by Andrea Wenglowskyj 

Multimedia Installation (buckets, paper, video projectio n, appropriated images) 

The tradition states that on the eve of the annual winter celebration, there is a meal of twelve dishes. The meal may commence at the sighting of the first star in the sky.  At this time, the head of the household summons all animals, sorcerers and spirits to partake. The koliadnyky (winter song singers) gather and pay a visit to each home, singing songs of prosperity.  Good fortune will not arrive unless every home in the village participates. After twelve days of singing, the koliadnyky and the priest gather at the river around a hole cut in the ice. The priest  dips candles and blows into the water, thereby blessing it. Now the ancestor spirits who were invited to dinner are sent off down the river. The heavens are closed and the winter songs cannot be sung again until next year. The community take home pails of river water to be used on special occasions throughout next year.

The ritual of Ukrainian winter songs has lasted through Soviet rule;  even during my youth in Rochester, we maintained this practice. Shuffling around in winter gear,  we were driven around to homes of the Ukrainian community. Each foyer embodied a magical presence as we sang  before the celebratory meals.  As I sang the familiar melodies, I imagined spirits, bears, wolves, sorcerers, foxes and farm animals joining us in song. My community managed to keep the tradition alive from house to house, from year to year. Just the presence of my grandmother’s blessed jar of water held my gaze in her refrigerator, as I imagined her having carried  it home from the sacred imaginary river.

In New York, museums and galleries can be considered our contemporary sacred places. Via a physical shift, we allow ourselves to experience a new idea and pass it forward.  By witnessing the traditions and ideas of others, the relationship to our own can change. To facilitate the future of the Ukrainian winter songs, through remembrance and knowledge, guests of the community inside the Ukrainian National Institute can take away not water but a link to information. By passing this along to friends, family and strangers, one interpretation of this tradition can be transmitted.