Design Free Thursday | Kseniya Simonova’s Sand Animation.

A few month ago now, I  was at a dinner party with a bunch of close friends. We had a lot of fun and, as is the case with all good dinner parties these days, we ended up watching a few YouTube videos on the laptop around the table. {Insert eye-roll here!} It’s crazy what the technology is doing to our social interaction these days, right?! As much as this is probably not a very cool thing to do, I’m so glad we did it as I got to see this amazing video which I finally decided to share with you today. It’s done it’s rounds and I’ve even seen it on TeeVee since, but I don’t care – it’s so good that, even if you’ve seen it before, it’s definitely worth watching again.

The video is of Kseniya Simonova, a Ukrainian sand animator. She was the winner of ‘Ukraine’s Got Talent’ in 2009 {I know that could potentially sound dodgy to some of you, but please stay with me}. Kseniya uses a giant light box, dramatic music, imagination and ‘sand painting’ to interpret the invasion and occupation of her country from 1941-1945 in World War II.

This performance has received almost 15 million hits on YouTube. I suggest you set 8 minutes aside to watch it as I have a feeling that you won’t regret it. It is just so beautiful and powerful that it actually made me cry. True story.

x dana