Recharge & Revolt: Queer Resistance and Rave Culture in Ukraine
Melkweg, Amsterdam, 2023
Jan Bačynsjkyi, Pantheon of Fleeing Spirits, 2022–2023. Photo: Anton Shebetko
The exhibition features works from contemporary Ukrainian multimedia artists and collectives: Jan Bačynsjkyi, Vic Bakin, Lesha Berezovskiy, Illia Chernysh, Kateryna Lysovenko, Oleksandr Halishchuk, Alex King, Zoya Laktionova, Mariia Leonenko, Rebel Queers, Anton Shebetko, Nick J. Swarth, Angelika Ustymenko, and the documentation of a Queer-Cabaret Magic Infant performance (Creative directors: Alina Kleytman, Bogdana Ukraina. Performers: Anatoly Belov, Boji Moroz, Vlad Shast, Panda aka Masha Volkova, AntiGonna. Music: George Babanski). Curators: Maria Vorushina, Anton Shebetko.
This exhibition explores rave culture in Ukraine and serves as an expression of queer resistance. The vital practices and connections of the self-organised queer communities in Ukraine are manifested in rave culture. Techno and rave scenes have flourished after the Revolution of Dignity (2013-2014). Ukrainian art is often closely tied to activism and herefore, queerness is recognized by artists not just as a manifestation of our identities—but as a practice of imagining and reshaping the future community.
Performing Kyiv
Cabaret Voltaire, Schauspielhaus Zurich, 2023
Alevtina Kakhidze. An Attempt at Comprehension: Scripted Performance with Immanuel Kant, Lettuce, and Rose. Schauspielhaus Zurich, 2023
Performing Kyiv is a sequence of performances by Alevtina Kakhidze, Uta Bekaia, Maria Kulikovska, and Nika Timashkova.
The emergency for solidarity in response to the ongoing war waged by Russia against Ukraine tests the real meaning of things and ideas. We imagine Kyiv not only as the old European capital (turning 1541 this year), but also as a unique practice of an international community bound by solidarity, strength and freedom. The position of Kyiv is that the reality of war makes ambiguous answers, freezing the conflict, or buying the dirty peace impossible—as the world’s silence about the Russian occupation of Georgia’s South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008 and Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine in 2014, resulted in a bigger tragedy. The most important question is: While aiming for peace, do we all seek justice?
From the Battlefield
SEA Foundation, De Pont Museum, LocHal Bibliotheek
Tilburg, 2022
Artists: Katya Buchatska, Chantal Rens, Nick J. Swarth, Kostyantyn Doroshenko, Alevtina Kakhidze, Eveline van der Peijl, Sasha Kurmaz, Yulia Protsyshyn, Leo Trotsenko, Tamara Turliun, Andrei Liashcuk, Roos Vogels, Chikako Watanabe.
By presenting words, notes, images, documents, and works of artists, curators and thinkers, From the Battlefield focuses on the strength of making small decisions of dignity and freedom when also sacrificing for victory in the circumstances of war. Through collaborations and artistic material by Ukrainian and Dutch participants, we want to capture a specific time and space where violence and disruption prevail. How people live through a war whose will for freedom is powerful, and whom we offer a safe space so that hope can sprout again. From the Battlefield aims to amplify the direct testimony and evidence of those who are committed to protecting freedom and hope. The collaborative project features an exhibition, presented at SEA Foundation. Additionally, there is a public program at at De Pont Museum and LocHal in July 2022.