The installation premiered in Kyiv in early June, with an edited soundscape to avoid traumatising\u00a0residents.\u00a0Video performances<\/a>\u00a0were filmed to accompany the installation as it travels around the world, including a reading of a\u00a0Crimean Tatar poem<\/a>\u00a0against tyranny that was suppressed in Soviet times.<\/p>\n \u201cI simply see something appearing on the horizon and have a certain freedom to engage with what looms there because I am independent and can dedicate myself to things that may not seem important at first glance,\u201d Sai tells The Art Newspaper. \u201cThat is the essence of an artist\u2019s work\u2014to work on what will become significant a little later.\u201d He adds that \u201csometimes reality overtakes me, rather than the other way around\u201d.<\/p>\n DJ Tapolsky was scheduled to perform at Burning Man on Thursday despite slipping and breaking his leg there due to slickness caused by rain after the dust storm.<\/p>\n Oleksiy Sai’s Black Cloud (2025) at Burning Man before it was destroyed by a dust storm on 24 August Photo by Dnytro Pochkun<\/p>\n Vitaliy Deynega, the general producer of Black Cloud who has been involved in Ukraine\u2019s defence since Russia first invaded in 2014 and served in 2023 as Ukraine\u2019s deputy minister of defence for digital transformation, described<\/a>\u00a0the sculpture\u2019s meaning and destruction in several\u00a0Facebook posts<\/a>, comparing the storm to the first moments of Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion. He is the founder of\u00a0Ukrainian Witness<\/a>, which uses photos, videos and cultural projects to document the war and tell its story globally.<\/p>\n Speaking with The Art Newspaper via satellite from the Black Cloud camp at Burning Man, Deynega says that \u201ca very strong and very sudden wind\u201d came with only a 15-minute warning and broke the structure in half. \u201cIt felt like one of your relatives suddenly died.\u201d<\/p>\n Many who managed to see Black Cloud before the storm were \u201ccoming and saying thank you for the message, because a lot of people across the world are feeling that we are on the very edge of something which can happen, and we need to avoid it\u201d, Deynega says. \u201cIt\u2019s not a Ukrainian conflict, it\u2019s already a global conflict on Ukrainian ground.\u201d He adds: \u201cArt is the best message possible. It resonates with people\u2019s emotions and with some experiences everyone has. It\u2019s much better than any kind of news that, for example, something bad happened in Ukraine. Everyone already knows that we have a war, but I want the world to see Ukraine as a country that can make beauty and can make art and that\u2019s why we\u2019re surviving.” Black Cloud is the same team\u2019s third installation at Burning Man, following Phoenix<\/a>\u00a0in 2023 and I\u2019m Fine<\/a> in 2024.<\/p>\n Oksana Markarova, Ukraine\u2019s outgoing ambassador to the US, tells The Art Newspaper that Black Cloud was intended \u201cas a reminder of unseen dangers hanging over all of us\u201d. She adds: \u201cWe cannot control nature and storms, but together with our partners and friends we do have the power to end Russian aggression and secure a just and lasting peace.\u201d<\/p>\n The\u00a0Ukrainian Institute<\/a>\u00a0had been planning to take Black Cloud on a European tour following Burning Man, with support of Ukraine\u2019s ministry of foreign affairs.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s important to bring this beautiful and powerful work to people in Europe, where Russia\u2019s brutal genocidal war is happening as we speak,\u201d says Tetyana Filevska, the institute\u2019s creative director.<\/p>\n Early on Thursday (28 August), less than two weeks after a summit in Alaska between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump\u2014who claimed he could broker a peace deal with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky\u2014Russia bombarded Kyiv, killing<\/a> at least 21 people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Black Cloud (2025),\u00a0a Ukrainian installation at the\u00a0Burning Man\u00a0festival in Nevada warning of dark times ahead for the entire…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[132657,132656,2000,299,7661,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-381680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-burning-man","9":"tag-disasters-destruction","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","13":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115110075746880738","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/f0b748f29373b03c02d25acf7a2055c1ebb1a7a5-2000x1334.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n