We invite you to the opening of a group exhibition of six Ukrainian artists, "The Soil under My Nails Reminds Me of Dried Blood," which brings together the works of Kinder Album, Anna Zvyagintseva, Olga Kuzyura, Daria Molokoyedova, Margarita Polovinko, and Dasha Chechushkova. Curator: Alya Segal. The opening will be held on July 5 at 6:30 PM at the Artsvit Gallery. It will run until October 5, 2024. The project also includes a number of public events, including a performance by Olga Marusyn and lectures by Kateryna Yakovlenko and Olga Balashova.
The front line is unstable. Some cities pass through this line several times. Others are gradually approaching it, although it seemed that the settlements did not know how to walk. The earth, whose image in many cultures is a symbol of the mother from whom life is born, eventually accepts the bodies of the murdered people into its soil. Not only does wheat sprout from the black soil—if we listen, we will hear stories speaking to us through the layers of the earth. Are we ready to listen to the stories of the dead? Are we ready to hear the stories of the living? Today, Ukrainians are collecting evidence of Russian aggression: photographic evidence, documentary reports, rocket fragments, and bricks of destroyed houses. But they are also collecting people’s testimonies. The stories of our grief and our strength are also evidence of this war, but they contain much more than dry documentation.
The exhibition “The Soil under My Nails Reminds Me of Dried Blood” weaves together many stories and testimonies. The Secondary Archive project, which includes the artists featured in the exhibition, began as an attempt to record the direct language of female artists when their role in the artistic community was still fragile. When men start wars, women’s voices can become quieter. The Northern Cultural Capital NGO has collected testimonies of women who survived the occupation of the Chernihiv region.
In dialogue with these stories, a work by Olga Kuzyura, whose family also comes from this region, was created. Kinder Album presented a series of works inspired by obituaries and stories of memory from the deoccupied Kharkiv region, collected by the Memorial project. In her work, Daria Molokedova works with the image of her own childhood home, which remains inaccessible in front-line Kramatorsk. Margarita Polovinko, a volunteer paramedic, paints landscapes with her own blood — sometimes abstract, sometimes with recognizable views of her native Kryvyi Rih.
Dasha Chechushkova’s panorama of the Black Sea, which the artist captured after the Russians blew up the Kakhovka reservoir dam, rhymes with them. Ultimately, this dialogue goes beyond the current war in Ukraine. Anna Zvyagintseva appeals to the advice she heard in childhood to always have sweets with her.
“I work in my mother’s garden: I help her with old cherry branches. Where there are no flowers and buds, I cut them. It used to hurt me even to watch someone trim the trees. I go to the greenhouse and use my fingers to pull out the grass between the seedlings. There is soil under my nails. I look at my palms and know for sure that they are smeared with soil. But my eyes see baked blood.
I remember the “first” thunderstorm. How many new “firsts” have happened since the start of the full-scale war? I looked out the window and saw the May lightning. I knew that thunder would follow. But my ears heard an explosion.”
Alya Segal, curator of the exhibition
Participants: Kinder Album, Anna Zvyagintseva, Olha Kuzyura, Daria Molokoiedova, Marharyta Polovinko, Dasha Chechushkova
Curated by: Alya Segal
WHEN: 5 July, at 18:30
WHERE: Artsvit gallery, Dnipro, Krutohirnyi Uzviz (Descent), 21A. Entrance through sliding doors from Uspenska Square
FREE ENTRANCE
This exhibition is supported by the Partnership for a Resilient Ukraine, funded by the governments of Canada, Finland, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States of America.
The Partnership Fund for a Resilient Ukraine (PFRU) is a multi-donor programme funded by Canada, Estonia, Finland, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, which unites the Government of Ukraine with its closest international government partners to deliver projects in primarily liberated and frontline communities that strengthen Ukraine's resilience against Russia's war of aggression. PFRU aims to strengthen the Ukrainian government’s capacity and resilience to deliver essential support to local communities in collaboration with civil society, media, and the private sector.
