In her home Crimean town of Yevpatoria, Kseniya Simonova is lovingly referred to as the “Lady of Sand.” This slender and shy 24-year-old performance artist earned the nickname after winning this year’s “Ukraine’s Got Talent” television show on June 26, a local equivalent of the British and U.S. talent shows. But since her victory, despite worldwide recognition and over 10 million hits on YouTube, Simonova has shunned the trappings of stardom for charity work and a quiet life with her family.
Simonova won the competition with an emotional performance reflecting on the events of World War II. She sprinkled sand onto a light box and drew pictures in the sand with her hands, all to a soundtrack.
After taking home the Hr 1 million prize, Simonova has given most of the money to charity. She started a fund called “Live, Sunshine!” campaigning against abortions and aiming to help poor mothers and children, as well as helping to pay for treatment of sick children abroad.
“Children are the best miracle of all. Everything in my life is connected with them. I think kids are my best talent!” she said. “The money I won is enough to help many of those in need.”
Simonova, who is trained as an artist, is one of four people famous around the world for sand animation performances. She only started working with sand in winter 2008 while working at her husband’s theater, developing her skills on the beach in Yevpatoria. But it wasn’t an immediate success. “When I tried working with cold beach sand, it did not let me paint each tiny detail,” Simonova explained. “The Italian volcanic sand I use now costs some $1,000 per three-liter bottle, so my husband and I had to sell our cell phones to buy it.”
But she stuck at it, honing her skills by secluding herself in a small room in order to learn how to “feel” the sand. She put a clear plastic sheet on top of three-liter jars so that it was illuminated from underneath, and then painted. “I understood that the main thing is neither the sand, nor the table, but the story I was telling,” she said.
Each performance is different, and is erased to make way for the next animation. “If you look carefully at my performances about the war that I did several times on the show, you will see that all my characters have different faces each time. I feel like they are alive,” Simonova said. Her performances can be viewed on her YouTube profile at www.youtube.com/user/xensand
Few expected Simonova to win Ukraine’s Got Talent, least of all the artist herself. “I thought nobody would care about my talent. Some people told me the topics of my performances were a no-win,” she remembered. Even Simonova’s own mother, a fashion designer, discouraged her daughter as her creative job didn’t bring in much money.
One of the “Ukraine’s Got Talent” judges, dancer and choreographer Vlad Yama, also had reservations. “I just worry it would appear too boring to the audience,” he remarked when Simonova entered the competition.
But she persisted for the good cause she had in mind when auditioning for the show. Simonova said she wanted to win to help a gravely sick little girl, Nika Fesenko, who was just over one year old at the time. “No doctor in Ukraine wanted to treat this girl, who had been infected with staphylococcus in a maternity hospital and is now in a coma,” Simonova said. “Her mother was forced to keep silent about it and threatened she would be sued otherwise. I decided to try finding some sponsors who would help the girl. I think I won just for her!” she added.
Simonova, herself a mom to a baby boy, was trying hard to save another girl’s life by transporting her to Italy for treatment. However, the 16-month old child died on Dec. 5. “A deep coma caused blood clots in her heart. One of them got lose and she died at a hospital in Simferopol,” Simonova said. “She was a little angel.”
Simonova and Nika’s mom started a new charitable campaign called “Christmas Angel” in the memory of the child. For a month ending Jan. 8 they will be giving Christmas presents to poor families with many children, to ill children and orphans. Simonova also made a sand animation in the girl’s memory which can be viewed at www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzLlY4Z_Zto
Since performing in the show, Simonova has also helped a six-month-old girl with leukemia after receiving an email from her mother. She created a sand animation about little Nastya Olkhovska free of charge, and it helped to collect enough money to send the girl to Israel for treatment. “We did not know much about her. We have not even seen her. But thanks to her [Simonova’s] sand animation, Nastya and her mother collected enough money for an expensive operation to treat leukemia. They are in Israel now,” said Yulia Nogovytsyna, a friend of the Olkhovsky family and a volunteer helping to gather money for Olkhovska’s operation.
Alongside her charity work, Simonova finds time to promote her art. She is working on a sand music video for M1 television channel, and is planning to exhibit in Vienna, Paris, London and Los Angeles. She is also planning to open her own cafe-theater in Yevpatoria called The Sand Club.
With a young son to look after as well, Simonova is struggling to find time for all her projects. “My daytime belongs to my son. Only at night when he’s asleep I work in my studio till 4 a.m.,” Simonova said.
Simonova used some of the money she won to buy a house just outside Yevpatoria – her family did not have a place of their own after the bank reclaimed their apartment. “Last August we took a loan to buy a flat. But because of crisis we had to give the flat back to the bank and move to my parents’ place,” she said.
And despite her popularity and multiple offers to perform abroad, Siminova plans to go on living in her home town. “It may sound ridiculous to many Ukrainians, but I am a true patriot of Ukraine and the Crimea. I haven’t signed any contracts because I am a mother. Any contract would mean spending less time with my kid.”
Iryna Prymachyk can be reached at [email protected].
