When the Russian army’s shells hit, people had already fled to safety. But what the force of the impacts and the fires did not destroy, the soldiers took care of: they looted, devastated and pillaged. Senseless destruction, a senseless, unjust war against a civilian population who had to leave their homes overnight and against social and cultural institutions because the aggressor wants to destroy Ukrainian identity.
According to the UN, since the beginning of the Russian invasion, a third of the Ukrainian population has fled, more than five million people inside the country alone. Ukrainian artist Zhanna Kadyrova was also forced to leave her home in February 2022 when the Russian army attacked the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. She fled to the west of the country, where she experienced a crisis of meaning before finding her way back to art. She now lives in Kiev again and her works have been exhibited several times.
The supposed bread is made of stone
The experiences she made while fleeing in different parts of the country form the basis of the “Out of Home” exhibition, which is now being shown as part of the “Various Others” art event at the Nazi Documentation Center in Munich.
For the installation “Palianytsia” she collected large stones from a riverbed, from which she formed deceptively real-looking loaves of bread. Sliced like fresh bread, they lie on a table and attract exhibition visitors who would like to grab them. Palianytsia is also the name of the traditional Ukrainian bread that is given to visitors as a gift. Kadyrova gives it to the occupiers so that they can sink their teeth into it. A silent accusation that Putin has canceled the grain agreement with Ukraine, the world’s breadbasket.
Rockets approaching the VW factory in Wolfsburg? Zhanna Kadyrova’s “Russian Rocket” Instagram project makes it seem possible.
(Photo: Courtesy of the artist and GALLERIA CONTINUA)
“Russian Rocket” is not only an art project, but also an aid project together with the aid organization “Kyiv Angels”. As artificial as the sticker may appear, when the missile in the film approaches the VW plant in Wolfsburg, it becomes clear that the threat does not stop at the Ukrainian border.
The main work of the exhibition is the photo series “Refugees”. Kadyrova visited a medical center in the Kharkiv region, a school near Kiev and a library in Kherson when the places were still in the exclusion zones. She hastily photographed them with a borrowed small-format camera and later digitally assembled them into large-format images. Perhaps this is why the recordings radiate more than just a documentary character; they appear particularly intense due to their spatial structure and depth.
Kadyrova found places of devastation: shattered windows, hanging ceilings, opened drawers and compartments, overturned furniture, scattered papers. The school in Kiev was hit hardest. A fire almost completely destroyed the classroom; the heat from the fire cracked the plaster on the ceilings and walls. In the middle of the sooty-black room: two almost completely burned Monstera deliciosa. The “delicious window leaf” has also been a popular houseplant in German offices for decades because it is so easy to care for and robust. In this burned-out classroom at a Ukrainian school, the plant lives up to its reputation in almost chilling ways.
Kadyrova, like other plants, rescued them from the facilities and nursed them back. A Monstera that looks completely burned will meanwhile push a new, powerful shoot out of the ground. She stands next to the photo in the Nazi Documentation Center and looks not only like a silent witness, but above all like a symbol of the Ukrainian people’s will to survive.
Zhanna Kadyrova: Out of Home, NS Documentation Center Munichuntil October 8th