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As the design architect of the National Holodomor Memorial in Washington, DC, I find it difficult to believe that five years have passed since the me- morial dedication ceremony. While many Ukrainian American organizations worked diligently with the Government of Ukraine to realize this project, I often reminisce about the help and encourage- ment I received from friends and family, especially from women. Three professional reasons motivated my partici- pation in the international design competition for a Holodomor memorial announced in 2009 by the then Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Ukraine: the relationship between architecture and urban design, the location of the planned memorial in the nation’s capital, also my home city, and the de- sign competition process. Besides my professional interests, ultimately my decision to participate was influenced overwhelmingly by the topic itself – the Holodomor – and the importance of bringing rec - ognition to this tragedy in built form. Participation in the competition was anonymous. In theory, the best idea wins, not the best résumé or connections. Several people warned me that for Ukrainian design competitions “usually, the fix was in.” Nonetheless, I was willing to make a huge investment of time and take my best shot. I first heard about the holod from Varvara Dibert, my seventh-grade teacher in Ukrainian school. As a student in Kyiv in the early 1930s, she was witness to the bezprytul’ni – homeless peasant children wandering the streets. Her harrowing account made a lasting impression on me. I began to think about designs, and almost imme- diately – I just cannot explain how – the idea of wheat disappearing across space came to me, the disappearing wheat stalks symbolizing the inten- tional confiscation of grain. Having grown up in the US, I also understood that perhaps the only bit of knowledge about Ukraine that Americans had was that Ukraine was the “Breadbasket of Europe,” symbolized by fields of wheat. I began to work intensively on my design. Spatial- ly, the long “Field of Wheat” bas-relief sculpture on one edge of the triangular site would screen from view two sidewalk cafés on a side street and reserve the major portion of the site for public gatherings. I knew that I wanted the word Holodo- mor to figure prominently in the sculpture, so that this term would become widely recognized. A very critical test of my idea took place about two weeks into the six-week design competition blitz. During a Friday evening gathering of the Ukrainian Larysa Kurylas , Member-at-Large Reflections on the Creation of the National Holodomor Memorial WITH GRATITUDE TO THE SISTERHOOD Larysa Kurylas explains the design of the National Holodomor Memorial to Ukraine’s former prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk (2016). Our Life | Наше життя November | Листопад 2020 20
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