Kyiv Eternal transcends boundaries of time and place, bringing pre-war Kyiv now to the pine forests of Sotkamo. Kyiv Eternal is a tribute, journey and abstract exercise of love, loss and grief towards a place and a time that no longer exists in its documented form. The album consists of his personal pre-war field recordings of various locations in Kyiv juxtaposed with ambient ‘memory-loops’. Tracks construct an imaginary route that is psychogeographical rather than geographical, structured by memories and dreams instead of stones and road signs.
Following the 2022 Battle of Kyiv, this mechanically preserved, mundane material acquired a sacred meaning, functioning as a hauntological recollection of the lost future, both private and collective.
Can the sound of a tram announcement bring one back home, even if that home is irreversibly changed?
The artwork has been supported by the Ministry of Education and Culture of Finland.
Heinali is Ukrainian electronic music composer and sound artist whose core practice is driven by the sonic reterritorialisation of the past. In the reterritorialisation process he uproots historical materials and personal memories from their idealised origins and forces them into modern contexts. Heinali treats the past not as a fixed archive but as a reflective surface, like Perseus’s shield, capable of confronting the unmediated reality of the present.
Kyiv Eternal is a critically acclaimed ambient album originally released in 2023. The work consists of 11 compositions with a total duration of 55 minutes. At Reflektor Sotkamo, the piece will be experienced for the first time ever as an installation.