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EXPOSITION
JUNE 9 TO JULY 10, 2022 ESPACE APOLLONIA, 23 RUE BOECKLIN, STRASBOURG
Opening on Wednesday, June 8 at 6 p.m.
Open Tuesday to Sunday from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
IDENTITIES
ASPECTS OF CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY IN UKRAINE
If there are as many identities as there are ways to specify them, the infinite variations of this concept open the way for the individual and society to define themselves, between collective and individual identity or between national and social identity. The fascination that the notion of identity exerts on artists, on their work, is the central point of this exhibition. Based on the work of some thirty Ukrainian photographers, it bears witness to contemporary creativity that is alive and kicking.
Evoking collective identity leads us, first of all, to consider our past, its defining moments, and the stories that build our common history. Thus, the past is visited, questioned, or even criticized by the artists. It can be treated with irony, by putting different temporalities into perspective, or staged in a theatrical and poetic way.
The representation of individual identity is more complex. Each artist invents and uses their own processes for the construction of an eminently singular vision. Often, the characteristic features of the individual are modified, erased, covered, bleached, burned… Some artists use a hybrid representation between man and nature, human body and animal body, or have recourse to substitution, replacing the face with objects or flowers.
Finally, identity is often linked to the notion of freedom. The way to conceive it then depends on the context and the environment in which the artists evolve.
This inter-generational exhibition, therefore, illustrates some significant aspects of photographic creation in Ukraine. While highlighting certain local singularities, it is the embodiment of an artistic scene involved in a European and international context, dialoguing, through the prism of identity, around universal themes.
Artists:
Olga ABORONOK • Yurii BAKAY • Tetiana & Volodymyr BACHTOV • Yordana DRANCHUK • Igor GAÏDAÏ • Marianna GLYNSKA • Olena GOLUB • Christina KATRAKIS • Volodymyr KHARCHENKO • Sergiy & Viktor KOCHETOV • Evgenij KOM • Rostyslav KONDRAT • Yurii KO¬SIN • Olia KOVAL • Barbara LESINSKA • Anna MELNYKOVA • Andrii NEDZELNYTSKYI • Oleg OGORODNYK • Tania PAVLYK • Maryna SEMENKOVA • Serhii SHVEDENKO • Victor SYDO¬RENKO • Oleksandr SOLENTSOV • Eduard STRANADKO • Glib VICHES • Mila VOITOVYCH • Roman ZAKHARSHUK
Curators of the exhibition:
Ivanna BERTRAND, Glib VYSHESLAVSKY, Shalva KHAKHANASVILI, Daria EVDOKIMOVA, Dimitri KONSTANTINIDIS
Artist’s Lifelong Journey
Artists are capable of creating their own worlds. In travels or in forced migrations, they seek confirmation of the authenticity and truthfulness of their creations.
The smaller model of the Bakhtovs’ world rests on the banks of the Dnieper-Bug estuary in southern Ukraine. In the south, it is the sandy Kinburn Spit cutting through the estuary and the Black Sea, and in the north – the archaeological site of Olbia, the northernmost point of the ancient Oikumene.
The bigger model is associated with the journey on a replica of the ancient Greek diera, “Ivlia” along the shores of the Black and the Mediterranean seas, the journey which brought about the awareness of the unity of the Mediterranean and Pontic spaces.
