Research Platform: Motherland on Fire

The exhibition “Motherland on Fire” offers one of views on the history of the Ukrainian society in the 1990s, narrated through a prism of selected works from the PinchukArtCentre collection. The title of the exhibition alludes to the film by Oleksandr Dovzhenko “Ukraine in Flames” which tells about the bloodshed that took place on the Ukrainian territory during World War II. However, the works presented in the exhibition do not relate in any way to military operations or the real frontline.

Flames in this case are a metaphor for the insecurity, trauma or conflict that the society felt already in the 1990s and that are reflected in the overall social instability, economic crisis, bad working conditions etc.

The exhibition features works by Serhiy Bratkov, Volodymyr Kozhukhar, Eduard Kolodiy, Mykola Matsenko, Boris Mikhailov, Georgiy Senchenko, Illia Chichkan and group Peppers (Oleg Petrenko and Liudmyla Skrypkina). These works are linked by reflection on life after a technogenic catastrophe and perception of life during the first years of the post-Soviet Ukraine. Exposed together, these selected works outline the social and economic transition area that is marked in the collective consciousness as a “diagnosis” of the 1990s.

Concrete Dates Collective group that works with commemoration practices and archiving, and engages in performative research, has been invited to take part in the exhibition. The artists have been suggested to reflect on the themes touched upon in the exhibition through a series of interventions.

Concrete Dates Collective emerged in spring 2015 as a group of artists working with various commemoration practices. By giving a special importance to archival materials and historic marginalia, CDC seeks to understand more profoundly public celebrations and festive events and their role in ideological narratives and life experience.

Curator: Tatiana Kochubinska