Publications

2021, work in progress: The visual analysis of artifacts presented through an “artistic tour” to the Archives and Special Collections (ARCC), at Western Libraries

• Focus on the physicality of writing, reading and making books

• Identified, from the entire ARCC collection, about 250 rare books

• Grouped the items according to the features that should be described: bookbinding, calligraphy, woodcuts, etchings, limited editions, hand-printed photos, ink drawings.

• DCRM (Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials) is used as a core format, concurrently with broader descriptions of physical details and artistic features, as needed for the present study

2020, under review: a chapter for an academic book that investigates models for creative knowledge organization practices by examining methods that reside at the intersections of art, storytelling, poetry, craft, and knowledge.

2020, PhD thesis, Comparative Literature, the University of Western Ontario. “Embodiment of creative thought and visual logic in bookmaking” (Practice and theory of bookmaking; Art and market in the publishing industry; The outside and inside of illustration-making; Translation of a verbal into a visual metaphor).

2019, an essay is written and under review: historical analysis, the study of handwriting and binding, and description of the medieval codex of Byzantine period/provenience, held at the FIMS library (UWO).

2019 — conducted peer-review practices for the MLIS journal at FIMS, Emerging Library & Information Perspectives (ELIP).

2018 — a monograph Sketches on Some Incunabula, series Minima Bibliographica,

2017 — an article “Greek-Cyrillic influences in calligraphy”, in Kalligrafia. Vzaemovplivi shriftiv [Calligraphy. Influences of fonts], ed. by V. Mitchenko, Laurus: Kyiv, pp. 82-87

2011 — 2013 a series of 5 reports on arts of illustration published in an on-line journal “Fermo Mag”, Fermo Editore, Parma (Italy) www.fermoeditore.it

2011 — a monograph and book project on Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita: I did the research, wrote a nomograph (I re-worked my BFA thesis, completed in 2002), created illustrations, book design, binding. A series of art photos was published as a limited edition.

2010 — art book, Cherny, S. (poetry), published by Alberto Casiraghy, Pulcinoelefante: Osnago, Italy.

2010 — Salinzucca with illustrations, DS Art Studio, Milan (I developed the entire book project: wrote texts, illustrated, cooperated with a translator and print shop, published a limited edition, distributed)

2008 — art book, with O. Prihodko’s fairy tale Silence, DS Art Studio, Milan (I developed the entire book project: created/engraved etchings, wrote calligraphy, printed a limited edition, made bindings, distributed). The project won several international awards.

2007 – Master thesis, Academy of Fine Arts of Brera, Milan, Italy. “The fantastic elements in medieval book art”. I studied fantastic elements and their graphical representation of medieval European books, of the architecture, page ornamentation, handwriting, heads and tails of fantastic beasts. This project was developed simultaneously from both my creative word-picture interpretation of fairy tales and the historical study of medieval arts. The result was also thirteen large sheets of pencil drawings which were entirely filled with fairy tale characters, stylistically developed through the refraction of the medieval spirit.

2003 — Conducted a research project “Satires” at the National Library in Kyiv, on the collections and design of newspapers of the beginning of the 20th century, and wrote a thesis. The result included also a book project with my pictures illustrating poems.

2002 — research on the provenance and historical type of a 16th-century handwritten codex in the Old Slavonic language, then conservation work and reconstruction of bookbinding.

2002 — Travelled to the Lenin library in Moscow to work with M. Bulgakov’s manuscripts, develop a research project and write a thesis. The result included also a book project with my illustrations developed for Bulgakov’s novel in an artistic-documentary style.

CONFERENCES / PRESENTATIONS

2020 — a paper presented at the conference Research in the Arts, the Arts in Research, Lodz, Poland

2019 — OLA Super Conference, Toronto, ON (attended and volunteered)

2017 — presented a paper at the International and Interdisciplinary Conference "Letters", Varna, Bulgaria.

2016 — Presented a paper: the textual-visual relations in the 12th-century Manasses’s Chronicle and its 15th-century copy, written in Bulgaria in Old Slavonic language (Codex Vat.Slav.2). The University of Western Ontario.

2016 – the University of Western Ontario. Presented 5 essays on the 19th-20th–century Russian literature:

• The Holy Fool as the teller of “higher” truths in a corrupt world and a stock figure.

• The laughter. In trying to tackle “the laughable” (c.f. Bakhtin’s theory) and endeavoring to reveal some of its chief aspects, I discuss the rhetoric of laughter.

• The darkness that wounded the tapestry of their country’s history all too often elicited profound reactions from a plethora of Russian writers.

• Post-Soviet authors writing in the shadow of the Soviet system — even in their opposition to the regime.

• Crossroads. Russian literature often portrayed characters caught between contrary temptations — between monumentalism and intimacy, when characters are at a crossroads.

2010 — presented a paper at the International Festival of Calligraphy, Contemporary Museum of Calligraphy, Veliky Novgorod, Russia.