Tonya (Ton) Melnyk (b. 1988) is a textile and multimedia artist and queer feminist activist from Kyiv, whose art explores themes of labour, queer history, anti-war, ecology and more. Melnyk came to Finland in 2022 as a refugee from Ukraine, where they currently works with her artist partner Masha Ravlyk. The duo is currently working in the OAF Residency Programme and they are also involved in the OAF Visual Arts Programme.
In the framework of the OAF Academy Ton Melnyk has been working on the project Granny’s story comic book. Granny’s story – is an illustrated story based on the life of their grandmother Olena, who had been living in Ukraine and surviving Holodomor* and the Second World War. It is based on real facts and happening in dramatic but significant circumstances.
“The idea of the project appeared from the interview I recorded with my grandmother Olena around 10 years ago. On this audio we talked about her life and the life of her parents and siblings, they told different stories of happiness and tragedies. During the working grant period I was able to make deeper research on her life in my family archive, stored at my aunt’s place in Ukraine. There I found a 200 page manuscript written by my granny, which told the story of her family in more detail. I had a lot of joy, sadness, laughter and tears reading it with my aunt Olya. A lot of emotions and thoughts were caused by some unique materials, like photo albums and letters from my ancestors. And all of these were enriched by my aunt’s comments, which described her childhood and youth experience during Soviet times.”
During the exhibition in Pertin Valinta (Pertti’s Choice) gallery in the framework of Outsider Art festival Ton will present ready pages of the comic book together with some sound recordings of the interview with their grandmother Olena. On the 22.8.2025 of August as part oaf the OAF Talks: OAF Academy event there will be public reading of written chapters of Granny’s Story comic book in Ukrainian and English.
Read more: Ton Melnyk’s Instagram, Ton Melnyk and Masha Ravlyk in OAF’s Visual Arts Program
