Cherven is a 45-minute documentary audio work, recorded in 2022–23 in Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Volodarka. Kyiv-based sound artist Ian Spektor dedicated the work to four friends: Hena Kolesnyk, Kostya Kuzin, Bohdan Mazurenko, and Anton Petrochko. They were killed in the summer of 2023 near Bakhmut, Orikhiv, and Kupiansk. As a diary of loss, the work accompanies a city not on the front line, and yet never free of it.

The work makes no attempt to beautify what it documents. Children’s voices are heard because they are part of Spektor’s life; funeral processions sound because in Kyiv they have become part of daily life. At the centre of the narrative are four men who — with one exception — are never heard directly. Cherven conveys an abundance of atmosphere: streets, playgrounds, apartments, concert halls, churches, and hospitals. Yet it is not an ambient piece. 53 sound tracks overlap. From these layers, a narrative emerges, so that the work ultimately functions like a documentary listening piece.