One work from our collection has traveled to Paris: in October, Galina Neledva’s 1980s painting “Composition with Pipes” was presented in an exhibition titled “Displacements and Flows – Where the Dnieper and the Elbe Meet” at the French gallery Cité internationale des arts.
The exhibition explores the role of artists from the so-called “(post)socialist” countries of Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and beyond in the French cultural landscape against the backdrop of serious past and present events that lead to the forced displacement of people and non-humans — animals, plants, material objects — along with cultural practices and creative techniques. Curators Sasha Baydal, former resident of the Cité Internationale des Arts in a program supported by the Center for National Plastic Arts (CNAP), and Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, manager of arts and culture programs at the Cité Internationale des Arts, invite visitors to imagine a place where the waters of the Dnipro and Elbe rivers, which respectively flow through the cities of Dnipro in Ukraine and Ústí nad Labem in the Czech Republic, merge into one turbulent current. Like two rivers that metaphorically merge, the exhibition interweaves multiple narrative threads and different temporal aspects: the Cold War period, the post-socialist transition period, and the modern era, where unresolved issues of the past resurface.
“Displacements and Flows – Where the Dnipro and the Elbe Meet” highlights the constant mobility of communities and artists between these regions and France since the 1970s. The project reveals their trajectories in relation to their artistic practices and personal histories. It offers an intergenerational perspective that draws, among other sources, on works from the collection of the National Center for Plastic Arts (Cnap), some of which were created by former and current residents of the Cité Internationale des Arts.
Through artworks, artistic practices and archival documents, the exhibition sheds light, using a decolonial and situational approach, on power relations in the region and their resonance in France. Anchored in a space-time marked by Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine and the changes it brings, it examines the continuity of colonialism worldwide: who is subject to displacement or is chained to a particular place? Who has the right to mobility and who decides? What role does cultural diplomacy play in this movement? And finally, what power dynamics influence the representation of “(post)socialist” regions in France and Western countries?
WHEN: October 10, 2024 - January 18, 2025
WHERE: Cité Internationale des Arts, 18 rue de l'Hôtel de Ville, Paris
