NOTHING PERSONAL
The project coincides with the 35th anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster and is related to the personal story of the artist's family from April 26, 1986 to May 13, 1986.
Nothing Personal is a project-study of the limits of human vulnerability within the totalitarian system of the Soviet Union. Working with the long-term consequences of traumatic events, the artist turns to the study of post-traumatic stress through the actualization of the memories of their loved ones who faced a difficult choice, in fact, not having it. The artist recreates the contradictory conflict of a person's natural state of caring for relatives and at the same time a forced responsibility to the totalitarian Soviet system of government, for which there is nothing personal.
Just as adequate rehabilitation of people with post-traumatic stress disorder is impossible without the method of reprocessing – recalling personal traumatic experiences with help of a psychotherapist – the rethinking of the Chornobyl tragedy and its consequences should be based on the ability to look fearlessly at all fragments of history. The dissection of painful foci of inflammation is needed in order to free the space from unnecessary noise and finally give a way to answers. The visitor together with the artist will be able to answer the following questions: does the story change depending on the angle of its contemplation? Is there a re/distribution of priorities? Is healing possible? Can a story be personal?
The exhibition features materials from the open sources and the artist's family archive. One of the key elements of the exhibition is a series of still lives created in collaboration with photographer Vitaliy Ocheretyanyi, shot on old SVEMA film damaged by radiation. This film with an expiration date of 1992 was found by Oleksandr Syrota in the abandoned city of Pripyat at the Jupiter plant.
The exhibition will also feature a photo projection and video that capture the personal experience of the artist's family members related to the events of the disaster, including her father and grandfather. The photo projection depicts the moment when Ivan Proshkowskyi, the artist's father and chief of the Department of Internal Affairs of Kyiv region, informs his pregnant wife only about the need to close the windows and not to leave the house. He could not inform the family about the real events because of the non-disclosure order. For 5 days he was working with the reception and transmission of information by telegrams about the situation around the nuclear power plant. The telephone connection was intentionally damaged by the KGB.
On the other hand, the video of the shooting of ceramic animals refers to the story of Pavlo Solomakha, the artist's grandfather and the chief specialist of the Kyiv region in the fight against rabies at that time. In order not to spread rabies and radiation, he was forced to shoot the animals left in the exclusion zone, thus also rescuing the infected part of the animals from suffering.
Curator of the exhibition project is Maryna Shcherbenko.
Music curator of the project is Yuriy Khustochka.
Virtual space is created by Piotr Armianovski
Special thanks to Oleksandr Stryzhelchyk and Oleksandr Syrota.
Just as adequate rehabilitation of people with post-traumatic stress disorder is impossible without the method of reprocessing – recalling personal traumatic experiences with help of a psychotherapist – the rethinking of the Chornobyl tragedy and its consequences should be based on the ability to look fearlessly at all fragments of history. The dissection of painful foci of inflammation is needed in order to free the space from unnecessary noise and finally give a way to answers. The visitor together with the artist will be able to answer the following questions: does the story change depending on the angle of its contemplation? Is there a re/distribution of priorities? Is healing possible? Can a story be personal?
The exhibition features materials from the open sources and the artist's family archive. One of the key elements of the exhibition is a series of still lives created in collaboration with photographer Vitaliy Ocheretyanyi, shot on old SVEMA film damaged by radiation. This film with an expiration date of 1992 was found by Oleksandr Syrota in the abandoned city of Pripyat at the Jupiter plant.
The exhibition will also feature a photo projection and video that capture the personal experience of the artist's family members related to the events of the disaster, including her father and grandfather. The photo projection depicts the moment when Ivan Proshkowskyi, the artist's father and chief of the Department of Internal Affairs of Kyiv region, informs his pregnant wife only about the need to close the windows and not to leave the house. He could not inform the family about the real events because of the non-disclosure order. For 5 days he was working with the reception and transmission of information by telegrams about the situation around the nuclear power plant. The telephone connection was intentionally damaged by the KGB.
On the other hand, the video of the shooting of ceramic animals refers to the story of Pavlo Solomakha, the artist's grandfather and the chief specialist of the Kyiv region in the fight against rabies at that time. In order not to spread rabies and radiation, he was forced to shoot the animals left in the exclusion zone, thus also rescuing the infected part of the animals from suffering.
Curator of the exhibition project is Maryna Shcherbenko.
Music curator of the project is Yuriy Khustochka.
Virtual space is created by Piotr Armianovski
Special thanks to Oleksandr Stryzhelchyk and Oleksandr Syrota.