Teleport

Both main characters in the mural are real people: the artist herself, Anastasia Belous, and her future husband.

Anastasia lived in London for 12 years. In 2017, she returned to Odesa to work on another mural, and it was there that she met a young man. After she returned to London, their relationship continued long-distance, with most of their communication taking place via phone and the internet. The artist later transformed this personal story into the concept of Teleport.

The mural depicts a man kneeling and reaching out to a woman who is literally stepping out of the screen of a giant smartphone. The phone screen shows Big Ben, or the clock tower of the Palace of Westminster, representing London. Behind the man are the Potemkin Stairs, a symbol of Odesa.

The visual story is therefore:

London → smartphone → Odesa.

This is why the mural is called Teleport: the smartphone becomes a kind of portal that bridges the physical distance between two people.

The project was initiated by SKAY.UA, which wanted to highlight the positive side of technology: gadgets do not necessarily have to distance people from one another. On the contrary, they can help people maintain a sense of closeness when they are physically far apart.

For Belous, this idea had a very personal meaning. Her relationship with her future husband survived the distance between London and Odesa through their communication by phone and online.

The mural is therefore more than an illustration of an idea about technology — the artist turned her own love story into a work of street art.