[00:00:07] Dr Monika Wieliczko: Welcome to your guide to afterlife, your go to podcast for young widows. I'm your host, doctor Monika Wieliczko, a psychologist and your fellow widow. Each episode brings you insights from world renowned grief experts and authors discussing complex grief issues and their personal experiences of loss. My aim is to challenge the way you think, empower you to face your feelings, and help you develop resilient ways to grief. Move beyond surviving each day and visit guidetoafterlife.com to take part in the grief MOT, your first aid program for grief.
[00:00:50] Natalia Millman: Welcome to a guide to afterlife. Grief is a journey we all face, yet it's often met with silence. But what if we could transform that silence into something visible? Something we can all touch, hear and experience together. Today, I'm speaking with artist Natalia Millman, whose latest upcoming exhibition, Letters to Forever, turns personal letters of loss into a powerful, multisensory experience of art. Inspired by the loss of her father, Natalia has created a space where grief is seen, heard and even felt. We will talk about how her personal loss shaped this project, the deep need we all have to share our stories and how creativity can help us process grief. We will also discuss her Ukrainian heritage and the impact of the war on her work. If you've ever felt the weight of unspoken grief, this episode is for you. So welcome, Natalia. It's lovely to have you here.
[00:02:00] Speaker 3: Hi, Monika. Thank you. The introduction was incredible. Yeah, I got a bit emotional.
[00:02:05] Natalia Millman: Aw, I'm glad. And it's exactly what we do in this podcast is to bring those kind of really genuine, thoughtful connections that really brings up especially intense and kind of tender parts in us. So I really kind of want that kind of to be part of our conversation today. And all the time we have this podcast on, we start with the personal story of grief. And I would really like you to say a few things about yourself and what brought you into, well, art, but also thinking, focusing on grief in your work.
[00:02:44] Speaker 3: Yes. I've been an artist for over eight years, I think. Yes. And prior to the grief experience that I stumbled upon in 2019 when my dad died. Before that, I was an abstract artist. And I guess I was always very sensitive and very introverted as a human and everything that was invisible in in within the world that was attracting me. Mhmm. And I was looking at the nature, I guess, at that point in time and the the quiet and stillness of nature and how that is reflecting the human emotions as well. And then my dad passed away in 2019, and that's when things started to change. I couldn't really, as an artist, go back to the practice that I've created beforehand. I had, like, a block, some sort of area that didn't really I I wasn't I wanted to. I had a desire to do that kind of work, but something was blocking it inside me. And because I was creativity was always in my life and that's what was driving me, I was always curious about the world and how to make things and create things in in in even in daily life. I was just really interested. I I was I was I had this urge to make, do something with the whole that was slowly emerging within me. And I was trying to feel it was something. Guess some people grieve people grieve in different ways. Like, some people would busy themselves with stuff and would find things to do and occupy and and try to forget about the experience that they have. Others will go inwards and detach from the world. So I guess in my case, I was really the first option. I was trying to busy myself and find things to do. And that was a very subconscious process. I was making and looking for things to do without really knowing what that all means, without really understanding it. So instead of painting that I did before, I was drawn to things that are broken and things that I find in nature, like branches and bricks and and stones and wires and pieces of something that was whole and now is a part of whole. And I was hoarding these things and collecting these, bringing them in a studio without really understanding why. And I was trying to assemble them into something. So it was probably now looking at it, it was my way of rebuilding and building and rebuilding myself and creating something new out of of me, putting all my people and me together. Yes. Yes. How it all started. And it still continues into 2025. And that process, subconscious process was resulted in an exhibition, and that's when I started asking people to take part and wanted to find out what they think about grief and loss, and that obviously escalated and grew into this project that we're talking about today.
[00:05:52] Natalia Millman: The the letters to forever. We will go there in a second, but I also wanted to ask a little bit more about your father and if you could share with us a little bit how that affected you, but what what was the kind of the experience you he so he died in 2019. Is that correct?
[00:06:08] Speaker 3: Yes. I never had grief in my life of that Mhmm. Magnitude. I never knew what it looked like. And I guess I wasn't sure whether what would happen. Like, is this normal to feel this way? And I thought it's quite lonely, actually. I I was embarrassed of it. I was I was feeling guilty to of the feelings that I was having because I felt like although I had friends around, I felt like they don't wanna hear it. I'm not gonna bother them with my with my dad and how I feel. And then it kind of pushed me inwards. But the whole idea, I think, it just felt as if I was kind of underwater and the life was happening around me, and I was kind of very detached. It felt like I was there, but I wasn't there. And I should be part of it, but there was it was like me kind of encircled in this bubble, and I was kind of inside trying to understand what's going on, being really, really detached from the world. Mhmm. Mhmm. And the whole process of integrating again, it's a long term process and you have to work on this and you have to learn well, it kind of really caught my curiosity about wanting to learn what grief is like and how it affects our bodies. So was doing lots of reading, lots of courses, and kind of to understand from scientific side what is going on. Because I wanted to find solutions. I wanted to find answers desperately.
[00:07:35] Natalia Millman: Sounds like you wanted to understand yourself most importantly. What was this alienating experience?
[00:07:42] Speaker 3: Yeah. Because it was very scary. It was very scary and I always had fear of death, generally. So by me plunging into this and trying to understand, I was kind of challenging my fear and I want getting closer to it to understand that fear by approaching it so closely.
[00:08:00] Natalia Millman: It's just a very brave thing to do. And as you're saying, the initial response to boob was to distract yourself. But as you were going alone, sounds like you were actually thinking, well, what is this? And I what I'm hearing is a lot of curiosity about your own internal world and your own experiences, but also thinking about how you can use the world around you, the objects that you were coming in touch with, and how they were representing something broken in you and how that kind of reparative process was taking place, which you used what you've known about, which is using art, using objects, using all those materials that were accessible to you and giving them some meaning, some kind of way of transforming this experience, which is Yeah. Absolutely fascinating. And your work I mean, I've been following in you on social media and looking at your artwork, and it's absolutely stunning. It's absolutely beautiful. It's just it evokes such strong embodied visceral reaction, which I think it's so needed, I think, within the society that is so I think still very acutely terrified of dealing with death, dealing with loss. As you said yourself, you've had that same reaction before your father died. And and I can relate to that as well. Before my husband died, I was absolutely petrified of the idea of death and loss, and and I think we all kind of detach from it as he's saying. But what you're describing is that actually being confronted with your father's death really put you in touch with something. And despite the the anxiety, despite the fear, you've been able to connect with it and turn it into something extraordinary, something really beautiful and something that evokes such strong emotions. So I'm really hoping we can talk a little bit about the letters to forever and how did that come about because it's it's such a wonderful idea getting people to send you letters. I mean, can you say a bit more about where that comes from?
[00:10:08] Speaker 3: Yeah. I think it came from my own fear again. Everything comes from fear. It was a fear of my own grief and because I couldn't really write with my own letter, I just asked people to to start and I thought, okay. If they write a letter and I can see that they can do it, maybe it will kind of help me to write my own letter. So if I'm honest, that that was probably why I asked people. But also, again, my curiosity. I wanted to kind of not compare my grief to others, but I wanted to see how they are doing it. What is their story? Mhmm. Because I think stories in our world are so so important. We'll learn from the stories and we can relate to people through storytelling. Mhmm. And also, wanted to kind of see because grief is such a universal experience, it's also very personal. There's no sign because it depends on the circumstances and the character of the person, how they're processing these emotions. And if I bring all these stories together, how amazing would be to see this energy of community, of connectiveness, of hope maybe despite this loss. So I think that was my idea of bringing these letters together. And then once I started accumulating them, I looked at this from the artistic point of view. What can I do as an artist to those letters? How can I give certain justice? How can I I felt responsibility? How people are writing to me. I'm a stranger. They want to be heard. They want me to listen. They want me to to respond. How can I respond to these words Mhmm? That they're sharing with me? And I thought, obviously, I can I can draw? I can paint. I can do this. So how do I combine these two things together? And I created a set of rules where I would maybe read one letter and see how it makes me feel and sit with it and just simply respond with mark making and very basic materials that I have on my table. And, again, that was for me very challenging because I'm as a as a personality, I'm a very I'm I'm a perfectionist, and everything has to be done to certain level to the highest ever level. And this kind of process is the opposite to that. I will not be perfect. I wanted to not come back to the work. I wanted to do it very quickly instead of taking a long time. I wanted to fight my own self really because I wanted to learn something new about me. And that's what the process is. I'm reading a letter and I'm responding to it on the spot with the materials that I have on the table and the types of paper I have, and each drawing is a response to that letter. So it's like me and somebody else there who I don't know having this conversation.
[00:13:07] Natalia Millman: Mhmm. This dialogue. Yes. In different languages.
[00:13:10] Speaker 3: Exactly. We're connecting through space and time and these bonds that we establish. Even now, after I finish the drawings and I I pick up a letter, it kind of brings my memories back. Well, the first time I read it or I remember all that letter mentioned, that person, or that happened. It's like talking to people. It's very strange. It's like talking to people that I never met.
[00:13:33] Natalia Millman: The griefs connects us all, doesn't it? It doesn't matter in a way who we've lost. The common experience is the experience of loss and how that affects us. As you said, it changes us in different ways, but there's something almost that communal about this that we really kind of break down the barriers because if someone can share some something so personal as writing a letter to the loved one that they've lost, There are not many more powerful and vulnerable things you can do, and sharing that with someone you don't know, I think it really brings up such strong visceral experiences just just thinking about that and what you can do with this and how you can respond to that and communicate that back to that person through your exhibition. I think it's it's just absolutely unique, I think, when you think about what we can do through art with our grief. And I wonder what you've learned through reading those letters. I mean, well, I mean, obviously, it's obviously difficult to put into one sentence, but I wonder whether you've noticed anything or how people talk about grief or any any kind of after kind of consuming and kind of not consuming, maybe it's not the right word, but like processing and taking in all all of those letters. What's the kind of essence of it for you?
[00:14:59] Speaker 3: Yeah. I've learned lots of things about myself, but also learned of things about grief in general. So go back to the letters. I've learned that some letters there is a number of letters that are very so what I did is I I I kind of analyzed I used narrative analysis to Mhmm. Go through the letter. So I've pulled out key themes and kind of key emotions that particular letter represents. And in the process, I've learned that most of the letters are very hopeful. People are very resilient and despite the loss, and they describe how these particular loss of somebody or something triggered this process of growth. So there is something that they kind of unleashed throughout. They've learned a new skill or they've they wanted to study something because that's what kind of that person was really kind of mentioning or yeah. And they they they sort of there's lots of positive things that people are mentioning in in their life right now that happened because of that loss. So that was quite interesting to see. Yeah. There's also not not just human, but physical loss that is described. There's lots of personal identity loss. People write to their own younger selves, to their selves, to the situations that happened in their lives. There are some letters that people write even to the people who they lost touch with who are still there in this world, but they are disconnected for some reason, and they're they're grieving that disconnection. There there are lots of different kinds of loss, and there's lots of loss as well about anticipatory loss, people who are going through dementia and they're seeing their loved one are still alive, but they are no longer who they used to be. So that's another kind of laws. So lots of different things are going on. But in terms of me, I found out that I I definitely has challenged myself here, and I kind of plunged into it without really realizing how emotionally difficult it will be. But and what I worked out through testing is three letters is is what I could handle per session because emotionally, it's very draining. And to create that balance where I really connect to that letter and emotions, but also keep myself safe, kind of create that distance and look after myself by doing lots of soothing activities is is something that I've kind of learned to do as well.
[00:17:42] Natalia Millman: And I remember when we had a chat before a couple of weeks ago before we were recording this episode, I remember you mentioned while you were doing this analysis, you you managed to come up with the words in the letters that were coming up the most common. And I've got them written down. And I just wanted to talk a little bit about that because I think that is also the essence of something you've been just talking about, but this ex experience of grief. And so the words that you've kind of identified are I hope, I miss, I'm sorry, and I wish. Yeah. And there's something about this whole kind of it kind of almost creates a phrase to me and I know that you've you've used that in your art quite a bit. But they they I just feel like they carry just so much meaning and such deep emotion about all those experiences that people go through in grief with the hope and and and the experience of missing someone, but also regrets and and and hopes for the future and wishing something was different. I mean, are all such crucial elements of grief and grieving, mourning the loss. But I wonder whether you could say a bit more about what you've done with this because I think you've done something really quite special. You transformed them, didn't you?
[00:19:10] Speaker 3: Yeah, did. When I started, it kind of this idea came obviously throughout the process. When I was reading a letter and I was thinking, these these words are being used a lot. There must be some kind of pattern, and I was drawn again to that scientific side of it and analytical way of thinking. And I wanted to highlight this repetition because the words were very short, very simple. If you take them out of context, hope, sorry, was Short. Yeah. They carry this emotional weight. Mhmm. And I really wanted to highlight it. And their repetition, the amount of times they used as well was showing this magnitude of this weight. Mhmm. How heavy it is, how much people are using it, how much they want to deliver this to the world by using these words. And what I did is I well, everything really in this exhibition kind of is centered around the words and the letters. But for this particular job task of using these phrases, I've created a fabric piece where I've embroidered all these phrases in the number that they ref are reflected in the sample letters. Most frequent one is I miss. It was used 121 times. So I've done 121 little embroideries of I miss on the fabric and so on and so on. And I also I've I've embroidered them in a shape of waves. So if you look at the whole fabric, you can see these words are merging into waves. And, again, it was subconscious, but now analyzing it. Grief is like
[00:20:49] Natalia Millman: Waves of grief. It is
[00:20:51] Speaker 3: because it's it's you you are either bobbing on the top or you're sinking under. It's either or or you're managing, and then you just suddenly sink if your trigger hits you very quickly, and you are up again. And this wavy substance of it is is what is represented in this piece, and it's never ending. It's like an ocean, like water around us. It's and we're just floating in it. And this piece I was doing with my mom actually, because she's really keen on embroidery. She's really skillful.
[00:21:27] Natalia Millman: Right.
[00:21:27] Speaker 3: I do engage her in my work as much as I can to help her with her grief because, obviously, she's widowed. She her husband died. And, again, she has to relearn her life really. Role changed and the identity changes with it. And then I bring her in my work as much as I possibly can to give her this way of creativity that we are talking about today, how we are looking at grief through creative process. And by doing this piece together where she would embroider and I would embroider on the same piece of fabric, It was kind of creating this sort of ritual, this connectedness between me, my loss, and her loss, and us in it together, spending time doing something meaningful together.
[00:22:14] Natalia Millman: That sounds so moving listening to you, especially that is he saying because, you know, you've lost the same man. Yeah. You obviously had a very different relationship with him. It was your mom's husband and it was your father. And obviously, that has a different meaning. It's a different kind of love, but it kind of what you're saying is that doing it together is obviously bringing those losses, those experiences of grief together and embroidering. It's almost like, I don't know, just listening to you, I've got this image of this kind of experience of releasing something. I don't know. There's this wave, but not just the wave, but I think this continuity of this experience because I can imagine it it took a long time to do it. So you keep doing it and coming back to it. I suspect that this it takes time and it is obviously you two together engaging in this process, which I don't think many people actually even know they can, you know, because it doesn't have you don't have to be an artist as such in order to engage in art. But there's something mechanical about the process, repetitive, not mechanical, but repetitive, that really kind of brings along this experience of change of, you know, different feelings coming up, having different reaction and the movement in your with your hands and processing that and sitting in the same room. I mean, this is this is all very special, but also I was just thinking about what that experience in itself can give to people. And I wonder whether you know anything about how your mother experienced that for herself and whether there was any differences between you and her in doing that.
[00:23:58] Speaker 3: Yeah. It because she's not as brave as well, she she hasn't written her own letter yet. And, yeah, she's she's really struggling by gently giving this opportunity of, yeah. Okay. You don't have to open the letters that might delt or close or something like dive in and and do something really so direct and profound. You can just simply do other things that will remind you of him. Because I think it's very important to bring the person who is no longer here somehow in the present moment. Yeah. Okay. They're not with with us here, but it doesn't mean that we can still create the life and meaningful conversations with them. And by, again, doing this project and looking at laws generally and doing this work with my mom, we bring him back in not directly, but indirectly, and he's still present. And then, again, when we are doing this ritualistic embroidering, let's say, and things can come up. We can start a conversation, or we can think of something that we remember. The memory comes back. So it gives her the opportunity to dive into that grief and to into that loss in a very gentle way.
[00:25:13] Natalia Millman: So rather than directly asking a question or because not as you're saying, not everyone is able or ready to talk and not talking doesn't or is isn't always the best way to approach grief, especially when we're still very sensitive and find it very hard to put things into words. But by acting, by creating things, it's it's you you don't even know sometimes you you connect it with something until the feeling or the reaction in the body comes up. So so I can imagine that especially for your mom and and and thinking about how you were able very skillfully to bring her in and to support her with this process without forcing anything on her, but actually using her skills. You already set off skills that she already had, like you mentioned, and using this as a way of entering that world of grief, which is really quite a clever way to do it actually when you think about someone who's really reluctant perhaps or fearful of confronting their own feelings, which is actually quite a common common thing in many cultures that we don't really talk about feelings. We just rather engage in activities and that that might be just a a different way of doing that. And the other thing I wanted to ask you really is because we're talking about this experience of creating the exhibition. You described it as immersive, that it was using sound and send and performance. And and I wonder what was behind it in terms of like, what were you hoping that people who are gonna come and see the exhibition? What are gonna feel when they step into the space? What was the kind of the idea behind it?
[00:26:56] Speaker 3: Yeah. I think the the reason I wanted to do it this way is I wanted to use all the senses because that's how we really can understand what's going on on a deeper level. It's not just words and writing. It's I think creativity really takes you on the journey through the senses. And my work previously was not specifically painting only. It was about photography and about sound and about touch. These things were very, embedded in me, and I wanted again to bring it into this exhibition. So by people coming in, although they will see the visual installation so the letters and the drawings are not displayed in a gallery setting. This is taking place in the functioning church. I'm building an installation, a big cube which will have drawings and letters instead of of walls. So I'm creating a kind of a container of this grief. So these letters, these structures holding these these emotions. And, again, people will can are able to touch and feel. That's how they I I will encourage people to do this because that's how you can connect to something on a deeper level through touch, through smell, through sound. There will be a few pieces where you will have to have your headphones in and listen to the sound, healing frequencies that help you with grief processing. There will be a grief meditation that people can take part in, quietly sitting on the chair, and there will be video work and my performance where I will be reading the letters out live in the in the performance, kind of getting my voice as a medium, really, of taking these words that are written on the page and making them really physical, just vocalizing them and into the space and people kind of absorbing them with the the audio with their with their ears. Yeah. I guess by making it very multisensory, I want people to come and stay for a while, I think. It's not something that Mhmm. Coming in and out. And also the church where it will be held is a space kind of to naturally calm us down and just we kind of we're coming to the church and we suddenly feel a bit reflective and and calm. We sort of forget about the outside world, the stillness and the silence, the quiet space is is what I well, hopefully, will size and elevate this energy of the exhibition where people hopefully will just connect to the words and by listening, I want people to listen. So this is me listening to the stories, but I want others to listen. Simply be and listen, read the stories, and possibly kind of try and and see how their grief feels like as well, maybe in a safe way. And I'm working with Cruise Bereavement, their UK charity that will be helping me with offering expert advice, professional advice because, you see, I'm an artist who is interested in these themes, but I'm not a professional. There will be an opportunity to be held and supported by professionals if anything comes up. And I'm making it very engaging. There will be a space where people can listen to sound and respond, kind of like me really, to the sound, and there will be a meditation where you access it in the body, your grief. And there will be an opportunity to visually respond to it as well and and show what this grief looks like or what color it has on a piece of paper. Do some writing.
[00:30:50] Natalia Millman: That sounds like much more than an exhibition. That not to minimize the role of exhibition, as you're saying, I think what I'm hearing you saying right now is that you're not interested people just voyeuristically watching other people's experience. You are engaging people in just like you were with those letters in the first place and how that could be in some ways a catalyst for people to to find something in them that resonates, that really brings it up to the surface in a very kind of safe and containing way because there's there's something about the structure that you designed Mhmm. For the installations and also the time scale because it it's gonna be over a longer period of time, isn't it? It's over a month in August this year. Yeah. Is that correct? It starts at the beginning?
[00:31:40] Speaker 3: Three weeks. Yeah.
[00:31:41] Natalia Millman: Mhmm. Three weeks in August. Yes. So so it kind of gives you an opportunity to come in, experience something, and leave, and then maybe come back again. And and there's something very unique about every visit or every moment when you come in and you see different people, experiences. You may be drawn to different elements of it, which is something that inherently is true about grief that is so multidimensional. And, you know, grief isn't just about feelings. It's about what's going on in our bodies. What we remember, the smells, the visual field gets really activated when we grieve. We can sometimes see things that are not there. So you're processing things with your whole body, with your whole mind. So I really like this analogy, how you're really kind of pushing people in a gentle way to engage with those different elements. You never know what's gonna come out. You never know what's gonna affect you the most or what is going to be revealed through that. So it's a really fascinating process that we're really kind of getting people to engage in. Can you say a bit more about when the exhibition where the exhibition will be taking place exactly? We'll put some information in the show notes at the end, but just so for everyone listening, so they know more or less where to go in August.
[00:33:01] Speaker 3: So the exhibition will be just outside London in Hertfordshire, a town called St. Torbans, and it will be in Saint Peter's Church in St. Torbans on just in the center of town. Mhmm. About half an hour on Thameslink train from London, and it's a beautiful town, actually. It was built by Robert, so it's full of history. Even to come for a day out is is a is a good good thing to do in in in August, I think. Mhmm. Yeah. So it's gonna be August 6 till the twenty eighth. On the August 7, there will be an exhibition launch with some music and a mini performance and some drinks, so everyone is welcome to come and join. August 28 is the final day of the exhibition, and that's when the performance will take place. I'm working with another artist on this where I bring my dad in and he brings his mom, and we are creating an experimental sound and video piece with my live readings. And that will be on the twenty eighth, and that's the final day of the exhibition. Plus, Monika, I forgot to say throughout these three weeks, I'm also running workshops. Mhmm. So it will be not just, again, exhibition. It will be Mhmm. A set of workshops, actually five of them, run by local practitioners, and they will include grief yoga. There will be a grief circle with some journaling and breath work. There will be a mindful play session where you create a container for your grief mindfully, breath work, and meditation. And there are two workshops that are run, one for carers of people with dementia and one for the Ukrainian community as well. So they will run throughout these three weeks. There will be a booking, very minimum booking fee. And, again, all the money that are going through the booking will be, again, given to crews for their cause. So it's a nonprofit exhibition, and it's all to raise awareness and start talking about grief and loss in a very open
[00:35:13] Natalia Millman: Yes. I'm so glad you mentioned it this way. It's a collaboration with so many different artist organizations and and practitioners in your local area. So it's really about bringing the community together and co creating some safe space where people can really be in touch with their loss and feel included in the wider society, which often is such a problematic aspect of grief, because where do you bring your loss? And, you know, I strongly believe that the only way we can grieve is when we connect with life, with other people, and and when we are able to when we support it in this experience of mourning the loss and seeing loss in other people that stops making this grief such alienating experience and actually you can it can bring you together with other people if you've got the right space, you've got the right people and, yes, and you feel ready to, in some ways, open up a little bit. And as you're saying, doesn't have to be a major, you know, revelation, but there are different levels of in which you can engage during this exhibition, the workshops, the the parts of the exhibition that you might be more drawn to. So, yes, of course, we'll be encouraging people to check out your website and and find out more about the details as we're getting closer to it in August. Another thing I wanted to ask is, obviously well, it's hard not to mention the war in Ukraine. And and I wonder, obviously, obviously, you heritage you originally from Ukraine, but you've lived in The UK for quite some time. Is that correct?
[00:36:52] Speaker 3: Yes. About twenty just over twenty years, actually. Twenty four years. It's a long time. Yeah. And even though after twenty four years, I still feel like, yeah, I I did assimilate and I'm British, but I feel like that my essence is not British. It's very strange feeling, this aspect of belonging. I feel like I I belong here, but I don't. I belong there. So that's very strange, this kind of dual understanding of your identity.
[00:37:23] Natalia Millman: But I
[00:37:24] Speaker 3: guess with war, that really, really kind of really made my my belonging urge and desire, this this feeling of belonging really kind of agitated. And everything that's happening is is like here. I feel it every single day. This painful lost culture, painful people who are dying, painful Mhmm. Land, again, identity, borders, everything. There's lots lots and lots and lots of loss. And it was very, very important for me to look at it and bring it somehow into the project Letters to Forever, I extended an open call to Ukrainian community because I wanted them to send me their letters in their language, which was, in a way, slightly challenging, more challenging than I thought because I think now looking at it, the reason why I maybe didn't receive those letters, as many letters as I could, was because it's an ongoing present continuous situation. And people are so traumatized, and it's current. It's right now. We're talking now with you, and the losses are taking place. Yeah. It's too fresh. It's very hard for them to even use words to express their feeling. And I guess I don't know. In my culture, I think we, Ukrainian people, are very resilient as you can see now. But because we've been over through generations, we've been through so much pain. And, yeah, we've been yeah. It's it's historically, we've always been kind of pushed down, pushed down, and then we'll rise again, and we'll push down again. And so we've created that strength. But with it, with this resilience, we we kind of do not want to accept this pain. We just go for it. Fight. We don't have to talk about it. We're just doing it. And I think that's what I found. Well, I think just generally, cultures grieve in a different way, but I've noticed that in in Ukrainian cultures, we we grieve in a different way. We try not to talk about it. Although we do grieve and and grief is very deep, we just get on with it. And that's I guess that's okay. That's how things are. But by receiving these few letters from Ukrainian community and by displaying them like, I I wrote my letter to my dad in my language. I just couldn't write it in English because that's how he would not understand my English. I had to write it in this English language. So Absolutely. I wanted to kind of investigate this, compare this kinds of grief with grief. How do British people grieve and how do Ukrainian people grieve? And this kind of cultural aspect was very, very important for me to include Mhmm. In this exhibition.
[00:40:18] Natalia Millman: And I very much resonate with me what you're saying about the culture differences. I mean, I'm originally from Poland and similarly to Ukraine. I think, yes, we come from countries where being strong and fighting and surviving is the primary instinct because if your sense of safety and security has been compromised so many times, Yes. You you learn that the only way to get through something is by fighting and not giving up because I think there's something misunderstood about that experience of the war and and being under occupation and being constantly threatened, your life being at risk. I'm not I'm not surprised that people struggle to put that into words because as you're saying, it's too early. It might be actually retraumatizing. So whenever we talk about from therapeutic point of view, working with people who have experienced trauma, we often say, well, you have to reach a a sense of safety, security physically on the kind of materialistic level, but also knowing that to some extent that no one's gonna try to hurt you again. And if you're still living in a place where there's an ongoing war, of course, there there's a question of whether what we ask him for is realistic. As you're saying, you know, for some people, probably he is, but for others, for majority or probably they have to survive. And and that's the safest way to do it is just by surviving and not thinking and not feeling. And there will be time later on perhaps where this will become possible in the same way as COVID created similar kind of resilience in people that we see that in the face of tremendous threat, we rise, we unite, and then the knock off effect happens later on when we leave that space of survival. And that often happens in grief in different forms as well that, you know, initially, your adrenaline is cortisol is fueling your body. You just need to get through it. And eventually, you run out of the fuel Mhmm. And you you hit the rock bottom. That's when you start to feel things, and that's the time when processing becomes possible. So I completely understand their perspective, but perhaps people, Ukrainian people living in in The UK, I wonder whether they're they're a bit more, in some ways, safer because they're detached from the immediate danger, but they obviously have family members still living. Some of them probably living in in Ukraine. So there's also an element of the safety for other people that might be problematic. But I'm I'm really glad you're creating this space that focuses on Ukraine during the exhibition because I think it's such an important underrepresented part of the grieving that takes place continuously. They're grieving, but they're also trying to survive. It's such a complex process to go through. So I'm really glad that you're creating that to anyone who knows about anyone from Ukraine who would benefit from that. We really hope that you can share this episode and talk about the exhibition and and encourage them to join because it's it's such a wonderful opportunity for people to come together and actually really have that space, that safe space to think and to feel. So that's that's really, really important, and I'm and I'm so glad it's happening. And I suppose thinking a bit further along with your exhibition with this whole process which has been, you know, you you probably poured hundreds of hundreds of hours, thousands of hours trying to create this whole experience and obviously, it has such a personal meaning to you in terms of your own loss, but also kind of connecting with so many people. I'm just kind of thinking how much that gave you as an individual, as a person, as a human being, but also as an artist because I can see such a transformation in your identity as a as an artist through this. So it must have been huge.
[00:44:40] Speaker 3: Yeah. It has it has taught me a lot. It definitely helped me in my practice to be more loose and sort of more abstract and less expecting of me, less perfect in terms of mark my mark making. But again, I think as an artist yeah. But as a as a human, by working on this project and looking at other people's grief, I actually thought that I'm gonna kind of run away from my own, but, no, it did not happen. It actually brought my own grief to the forefront. And I'm very grateful for this because I think otherwise, if I didn't have this project, I'd I'd think I'd busy myself with other things, and I would just not even think about it. Or I will think and I'll push it away. I'll think and I'll push it away. But now I don't have another choice. I have to face it, and I have to look at my own grief. And this project helped me do that, so I'm I'm very grateful for that.
[00:45:39] Natalia Millman: And I wonder whether you have any tips or kind of recommendations how to connect and express your grief in connection with art, but also especially for people who like we were describing earlier, those who are struggling to talk about grief. Mhmm. Not everyone will be able to or wouldn't benefit from it at certain stages on their grieving journey, but what are your kind of ways or technique as an artist to kind of get there? You know, like you were talking about your mom earlier. You really got her to to connect with something, but but what are your recommendations and tips for our listeners?
[00:46:19] Speaker 3: Just talking about creativity and how it can help you because why it helped me because initially, I struggled to verbalize my feelings and I felt although language is super powerful, it was a little bit limiting because I didn't know what I felt. There was there were no words to really put it in. Yeah. I couldn't put these into words. So that's why creativity helped me. So the tips, you you really do not have to be an artist, and you don't have to be hard on yourself to create some masterpiece or something finished to accomplish. It can be anything from how I started even before this project and before my my sculptures out of these bricks and parts of found objects. I simply spent time in nature and I started noticing things that represent life and death, and I would photograph them, and I would notice that despite a flower dying, there is a flower that is growing and blooming. So by noticing these feelings and trying to find a connect trying to find the whatever you're feeling in nature. It can be a photograph of a a gray sky, for example. That's how you feel today. But then you take a photo of a bright sun, and then that's probably how you feel in a moment in time as well. And to see that kind of duality of it, is everything is either or. There's Mhmm. Between, but there's there is loss, but there is finding those really, really small elements of joy.
[00:48:05] Natalia Millman: In life.
[00:48:06] Speaker 3: And photographing them, keeping record or writing down what you've spotted, that's useful. And photography is something that I I still do, and there is a company that I would recommend anyone to check out called Good Grief Project. They're based in Devon, and they run grief retreats for people who are experiencing grief. And they use photography in their retreats. And they're, yeah, they're amazing. They're they're really a good team of people. Again, it's a family running it. And, yeah, they do brilliant work in helping people who lost somebody by using their creativity, and they have a a beautiful book that they published as well. And each page in the book features a real person who took creativity and used it as a as a force in their loss. So maybe by looking at this book or purchasing it or looking looking it up online, it will give you lots of ideas for inspiration how you can use these little spells of creativity in your loss processing. And another tip, just generally, very simple thing really for me is to create, like, a grid for your seven days, like, little square, and then each square, each day, you color with the color how you feel today. And by the end of the week, you will see kind of how what's happening, how you how are you feeling this week? Is it yellow? Is it all gray? Or is it all gray and one yellow, for example? Just kind of give an emotion or your feeling of the day's particular color and do it daily while you're having a morning coffee. You just color it in and see how you feel. Yeah. So by the end of the week, you will have this indication of how you feel, but you also kind of create something visual.
[00:50:02] Natalia Millman: Yes. And that's a really beautiful way of putting it, just connecting in the multisensory way with your feelings, but not necessarily answering questions. How are you feeling today? But actually letting your mind to speak by choosing a different color and using art in a day to day life. That's such a useful tip that we don't have to be artists in order to take photos or because you've got your camera on your phone. You we can buy some some coloring book or something that will just let you express that so you you really can do all sorts of things that could be beneficial in your grief journey. So, yes, it's been really inspiring and absolutely incredible listening to you. And and I can't wait to, obviously, to see the exhibition and to be part of this experience in August because I think it's a really special special place. So, Natalia, thank you so much for sharing your story and your work with us. It's clear that the letters to forever is more than just an exhibition. It's an act of communal healing, and I really hope that everyone listening will be part of it in August. And if especially if you're near Saint Albans, I really highly recommend experiencing it for yourself. So it will be for three weeks from the August 6. Correct? Yes. Yes. In Saint Peter's Church, there will be interactive workshops that offer hands on ways to process grief through art and movement and storytelling. And just to make sure that we know where people can find you, so I think your website is nataliamillmanart.com.
[00:51:43] Speaker 3: Yes. Correct.
[00:51:44] Natalia Millman: Is that correct? Yes. Yeah. So people can find you there and obviously, they can follow you on Instagram. I think if you just put Natalia Millman art altogether, you will be able to connect with Natalia on social media. And if this conversation resonated with you, share it with someone who might need it. Grief can feel isolating, but as Natalia's work showed us, we are never truly alone in it. So thank you so much for today, Natalia, and thank you for listening, and we'll see you next week.
[00:52:20] Dr Monika Wieliczko: Thank you for joining us. I hope you found it useful. Connect with me on Facebook and Instagram under guide to afterlife for more brief tips and resources. Visit guide to afterlife.com to send me your questions and to take part in the grief MOT, your free first aid program for grief. See you next Tuesday for yet another stimulating conversation.
