Research Platform: Guilt

Artists: Sergey Bratkov, Nikita Kadan, Alevtina Kakhidze, Yuri Leiderman,
Mykola Ridnyi, Lesia Khomenko, Fast Reaction Group, Masoch Fund.

The exhibition explores the question of the historical and individual guilt and responsibility.

In Ukraine, both in the early 1990s, which were marked by political uncertainty, and amid the current military conflict in its east, the rejection of one's own role, and efforts to justify acts with external circumstances (as opposed to scrutinizing oneself in an honest manner) defines the policy of memory.

“Guilt” highlights the radical acts and performances of the 1990s when artists started reconsidering the post-war history, putting viewers in the position of ethical discomfort. The works, in which they tried on the roles of the enemy, victim or invader, possibly for the first time ever touched upon the issue of guilt and responsibility for one's own choice and made the issue of winners and losers a subject of research. The exhibition combines these works with the projects of the recent years, which concern the ghostly memories of the past and the victims of the present. This dialogue puts on the agenda the question of sacrifice, guilt and responsibility in the whirlpool of events taking place in Ukraine today, when historical references become a tool of political manipulation and contribute to the division into "us" and "them" instead of mediating dialogue.

The exhibition is seeking to destroy the established concepts of "believers" and "infidels" while stating that willingness to sacrifice is not subject to hierarchization. Against the background of excited social blindness aggravated by the information war, the exhibition sends the message that one cannot share another person's experience but can understand it.

Curator: Tatiana Kochubinska
Co-curator: Björn Geldhof