Artist Statement:When I was telling my story, I feelt really emotional as it was sometimes hard for me to say it out loud.
I want people to understand that regardless of your background, whether it is your nationality or something that you cannot control, everyone deserves a chance to be viewed as a human being and to be not stereotyped politically, culturally or in any other way.
I think it's important for student voices to heard within an academic institution as student voices show the real citizens of schools, especially people who are underrepresented within the administrative branches.
Grigorii Malakhov:My name is Grigorii Malakhov.
I'm using He/Him/His pronouns.
I have chose question number three:
How do you feel about your last
name its impact on your identity?
My last name has a very great
impact on my identity because I'm Russian.
And in the current circumstances, a lot
of people assume different things because of
the political decisions Russian government has made.
And to me, it's very important to educate
people that we are not our government.
And whatever, I'm doing has nothing to do
with what government does, and what government does
has nothing to do with what I'm doing.
And a lot of people would assume bad
things about Russia in the current context, and
they would judge me, my actions, depending on
what is happening in the global political scene.
And sometimes it happens that I want to completely
forget that I'm Russian and just erase that last
name of mine and be myself like a blank
piece of paper without any connection to that country.