Projects

Archaic Codes of Ukraine. Men. Heroes. Gods.


Disastrous events in Ukraine witnessed and deeply felt by most of the humanity have already reached apocalyptic proportions. Russia’s war against Ukraine has essentially turned into a war against the very civilizational values of the West – those directly inherited from the Greek civilization of ancient times.

This terrible war became the bloody rite of passage for the free democratic Ukraine which is undergoing a Great Initiation right before our very eyes. All Western democracies are being tested for strength just the same. Apparently, the entire world as we know it will be different after this war is over.

In the current paradigm of fragmentary perception of the world, the postmodern game of interpretations, hybrid wars, and post-truth logic, the appeal to basic meanings and concepts seems most relevant.

The basic archetypes are BIRTH-LIFE-DEATH-IMMORTALITY.
Today the archetypal formulas of ancient myths remain as relevant as ever – MEN. HEROES. GODS. After all, the mass-scale personal sacrifice, the sheer burning will that overcomes the impossible and lets the inner hero free projecting common people to immortality as MEN-GODS – this is all Ukraine these days.

Art molds and shapes moral and ethical concepts. We based our “ARCHAIC CODES OF UKRAINE. MEN. HEROES. GODS.” project on classical traditions of the ancient art code that is imprinted in us on a subconscious level and forms the cornerstone structure of our mentality.

Being part of the Oikumene Ukraine inherited the sacred spiritual space of the Ancient Greeks living in independent poleis in the south of Ukraine two and a half thousand years ago.

Birth. Life. Death.

“Birth-Life-Death” triptych artistically rethinks mysterious archaic rites of passage based on material monuments and written sources. Artistic versions of ancient initiations and rituals are created using proprietory author techniques – heliograffiiti and terra-theater.

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Men. Heroes. Gods.

Ancient civilization created the cult of a Hero – a mortal man who, through exceptional courage and victory, as well as wisdom and talent, performed feats that only gods were capable of, destroying monsters and establishing new standards of human existence.

The reward was eternal glory and in some cases the apotheosis – acceptance into the host of the gods.

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Terra-theatre

“Terra-theatre” * is a kind of performance that stems from the ancient Greek notion of the plasticity of the world, and the human body as its absolute embodiment. It is a plastic reconstruction of myths and mysteries, of which the verbal information was known only to the initiates. They are rooted in the “collective unconscious” of the European community as important archetypes at the base of common cultural identity.

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Heliograffiti. Revival by Fire.

Volodymyr Bakhtov’s strategy of “artistic reconstruction”. involves the restoration of both physical and “ideological” losses of a historical and cultural complex. Working with the landscape of archaeological sites in southern Ukraine (Olbia and Crimea), he explores the “informational field” that relates to it, namely the mythological, philosophical, ethical and aesthetic ideas of antiquity.

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Reportage

Artistic events and performances at the National Historic and Archaeological Preserve of Olbia since 2000 (“Olbian Mysteries”, “Sacred Marriage”, “The Amazonomachy”, “Heroes and the Teacher”, “Birth-Life-Death”, etc.).

Volunteers for these actions and performances were found among the friends and acquaintances of the Bakhtovs, as well as among the students and teachers from various Ukrainian universities, who participated in the archaeological excavations in the reserve.

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