Month: September 2020

In Ukraine, there used to be 15 closed administrative units. After the Soviet Union collapsed, each town followed its own path. In most towns, military and strategic activities were brought to a halt, which had its impact on the demographics and further existence of the town.

It’s an exploration of one of the “closed towns” in Ukraine. Zhovti Vody is a small town in the Dnipro region. Established as an industrial center of uranium mining, in the Soviet era it was qualified as a “closed town” and given the code name Post Box No. 28.

Industrial development and mining and processing of uranium ore caused an increase in the radiation level and the number of cancer cases.

Modern-day transformations led to the shutdown and destruction of factories and mines, the younger generation moving abroad. This town does not exist on Ukraine’s cultural, political or economic map. It never “opened up.” Instead, it became “forgotten.”

Shown at JUMP Gallery, Poltava, Ukraine. Published in Untitled. https://www.untitled.in.ua/post/mailbox-28-kateryna-radchenko

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This project, based on archival photographs, aims to visualize the processes of forgetting inherent in our memory. Memory is variable: by its nature, it has an ability to manipulate facts and memories, suppress negative information from the sphere of conscious, and create false memories on the basis of stories, visual materials and the synthesis of the real, past experience combined with fabrication.

Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin in the conversation with Eyal Weizman point out:

“There is potential power lying dormant in every photo. Once a photograph has been used in a particular way and returned to the archive, it has the potential to be read again; its potential will always be in excess of its particular history that produced it”.

That is why in Fake Recollection, the photographs are used “without context.” These are photographs from family albums that are torn from history and can be interpreted by the viewer depending on their experience. Through archival photographs, I want to depict the processes of forgetting and recollecting and to focus on the diversity of ways in which visual images can be read.

Shown at Mala Gallery of Art Arsenal, Kyiv, Ukraine.

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As the Finnish philosopher Tarmo Kunnas says, “A person tries to attach meaning and sense to their personal history. The legacy of Hegel, the nationalistic historical literature, the general postulates of Marxism and the evolution theory, and the positivism of Auguste Comte of the 19^thcentury are all examples of unconscious desire of philosophy to find a disposition of Providence in the history of humanity. These streams of thought deliberately underestimate and embellish the tragedy of life and the evil committed due to the wish to present history as meaningful.” Photography is a visual carrier of history: an archival household picture reflects “visual priorities” of an epoch. Work with archives is work with memory: both personal, subjective memory, and collective memory, created in a manipulative way.

Over the past three years, I have been working with photo archives a lot. Visiting various archives, every time I felt like walking through a cemetery of history. A space which physically covers up a country’s private and social histories, hides the information behind the visual component. Photos give only illusions and knowledge, hiding the contexts. The project “Oblivion” visualizes our attitude toward history, toward the current events, toward the search for truth. It visualizes the process of memory disappearance.

All works have been created on the basis of archival materials of the Odesa Local History Museum and private archival photos made in emigration by V. Barskov over 1918-1944.

Shown at the 5^thOdessa Biennale of Contemporary Art.

After World War II, Minsk needed to develop further and form a new development path. Its image as a City of Sun was shaped in the 1950s. It was deliberately designed and maintained by the government, architects, writers, and others.

The space acquired territorial characteristics through human intervention.

My project was based on two components: a space with the signs of human presence as a fact of intervention and introduction of changes to the natural landscape, and portraits of people who were only present in the modeled landscapes without doing anything specific. The landscapes are reflections about two stereotypic images—local patriotism and utopianism. The results are presented in the form of a visualized survey of city residents in the street and as a collection of urban images.

Shown during the Group Show Silent City, Gallery Y (Minsk, Belarus).

For centuries, we’ve been keeping memories: in cellars and attics, in hot and cold rooms, in the open air and in the places beyond the reach of the sunlight. It’s the memory about historical events and about the past reflected in specific everyday items, in art, in photographs and books. Libraries, museums, and galleries are all places of memory concentration. Archives are packed to capacity, and there, just like in the labyrinths of history, things get lost and forgotten…due to the lack of access to studying, acknowledging, and reinterpreting one’s heritage…

The photo project “Open Access” urges us to give a new meaning to the issue of keeping/preserving/using archives and collections. The lack of access to them results in oblivion and destruction. Why do we need to remember the past and to preserve it in the present-day context? What do we protect collections and archives from by making them inaccessible or failing to interpret them?

The project is a result of work with collections and archives of the Lviv Museum of Folk Architecture and Rural Life and the Lviv Museum of Religious History. It was presented as an intervention into the ongoing museum exhibition; as a visual intervention of photographs displayed in between the museum exhibits. Shown at the Lviv Museum of Religious History.

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Seven hundred kilometers away from my home town, the war is raging. It’s happening in the same country, some 700 kilometers away from me and my family, but I don’t know what is really going on there. The war occupied physical territory and online space. We don’t know where to find true and accurate information; we’re just trying to understand the situation and act according to our own subjective knowledge. We are far away from the epicenter but, at the same time, we’re part of the historical moment.

It is a photo story in the form of a collage about the fight for future freedom. Contemporary media information and historical knowledge are combined in search for the truth.

Shown at ARTISTERIUM, Tbilisi, Georgia and group exhibition Reliability Theory, Kyiv, Ukraine.

Published in MAGENTA.

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The project was created in Warsaw during a six-month scholarship. I remember what the city looked like in the early 1990s, and I noticed how it changed. The city became colorful and multinational, with all kinds of cafes serving kebab and Vietnamese noodles. Formation of a contemporary city is influenced by inter-ethnical integration. Every person moving to another capital becomes part of the global history of this land.

It seems that Warsaw is overwhelmed by the past. I have never seen so many events focused on history, memories, and analysis of the past. History and memory live in each building, in each street. It seems that it’s forbidden to forget anything here; nobody will let this happen. 

The story of each person’s life appears to be the history of an entire country. So, to get to know this city better, it’s enough to meet its people.

The project consists of archive pictures from family albums and offers a reflection about an ordinary person’s story becoming part of an integral, global narrative.

Published in ARHIVO (Issue 10/ autumn 2014)