Watch winner of Ukraine’s Got Talent 2009 Kseniya Simonova, 24, draw a series of pictures on an illuminated table of sand showing how ordinary people were affected by the German invasion during World War
II.

After moving many in the audience to tears with her extraordinary images Kseniya Simonova won the top prize of about £75,000.

The sand performance starts with a happy couple holding hands on a bench at night. Then warplanes appear and the scene disappears in a shower of sand.

Next, you see a woman crying bitterly. Soon after, a baby appears and the woman seems happy again.

War comes again to this loving scene and sand whirls into chaos. A letter lands in a young woman’s hands.. and she becomes an wrinkled widow before our eyes then the image is scooped away to reveal the shape of an Unknown Soldier monument.

In the final scene, a mother and child stand at a window – hands pressed to the glass – saying goodbye to a man outside. The artist then writes “You are always near” before blowing out a candle.

Kseniya Simonova’s work depicts the Ukraine’s experience during World War II, also called the Great Patriotic War of 1941 to 1945. It is believed that almost 25% of a population of 42 million died during this war.

Link to Guardian article
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/tvandradioblog/2009/aug/13/ukranian-sand-artist