Olena Gyrenko is a very proud Ukrainian soul. A dedicated, and happy but also often tired mama of Sophia and Lev. She is a caring daughter, not the worst friend and a loving but often whining wife to an amazing Dutch man called Leon.
This episode is probably one of the rawest and most honest Salt conversations I have ever had. Olena tells us about her life in Ukraine, of what it means to claim the streets and how her diasporic journey brought her to the Netherlands. How it feels to be far from the place you call home, to experience post-partum depression, witnessing an invasion, a war, an injustice from afar.
Our conversation is framed by poems read in Ukrainian and English giving Olena the space to structure the talk and giving her the room to speak about the topics as much and as little as she likes because at Salt we never record our guests' stories just for the sake of those, we do not expose our guests, have no interest in ‘selling’ their testimonies for sensational purposes, in the perpetuation of stereotypes and invasion of personal lives.
Through telling our stories here on Salt we react to the injustices of the world, we claim our testimonials as part of feminist knowledge production, as a form of resistance aiming at forging solidarity among us, positioning us a agents. We document these stories against predominant discourses, fascist regimes, one-sided knowledge production, colonialism, oppression, in moments of history where narratives are either not known, manipulated or erased. We remember to resist, to disturb people’s comfort zones, to withstand being told we are too much.
Olena's opening up to us all reminds me of the importance of speaking collectively about our most intimate issues as one of feminism's most beautiful beliefs. By Olena allowing us to enter into what is considered by our society as one of its most private spaces: your marriage and your home she shows us how the personal is political. And I thank Olena for that.
Trigger Warning: This episode contains topics of a highly sensitive nature including violence, war, rape and postpartum depression.
Host: Stella Saliari
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