TELL THEM ABOUT BATTLES, METEORS AND EGGPLANT CAVIAR

7 Ukrainian photographers

  • Exhibition

13.05 - 17.09.2022

  • Strasbourg

Meat, Fish and Eggplant Caviar © Alex Blanco

FREE ENTRY

FROM WEDNESDAY TO SATURDAY

14 p.m. - 18:30 p.m.

PRESS RELEASE

Exhibition produced as part of of the support program for Ukraine piloted by the Diagonal network with the support of the Ministry of Culture and the French Institute

With the support of the DRAC Grand Est, the Grand Est Region, the City and Eurometropolis of Strasbourg

With the support by Odesa Photo Days

in collaboration with The Carré d'Art, Pôle Sud Cultural Center (Chartres-de-Bretagne) and the Claude Cahun Center (Nantes)

Alex Blanco, Maxim Dondyuk, Yana Kononova, Olga Kukush, Oksana Nevmerzhytska, Elena Subach, Daria Svertilova.

The artists tell of the paper parrots hung by the young people on the walls of the collective habitats of kyiv. They also tell about pregnancy and the loneliness of women. Hospitals that could melt like sugar Jesuses. The recipe for eggplant caviar in Odessa. Garlic, pepper, some peppers. The meteorite that the inhabitants await, crucifix in hand, in Chervonohrad. Naked bodies – so long forbidden. They tell the night, the sea and finally the snow which will soon be covered by the poetry of Lao Tseu.

For several weeks, questions have been bothering us. What can we show of Ukrainian creation today? How do the artists view their previous series? How do these works resonate in a country at war? These questions were asked to the artists and accompany an exhibition of photographs taken before February 2022.

Celine Duval.

Series Meat, Fish and Eggplant Caviar © Alex Blanco / Series Meteorite Berdychiv © Elena Subach / Tempor Seriesary Homes © Daria Svertilova

Odesa Photo Days is an international festival of contemporary photography based in Ukraine as well as an educational platform. It brings Ukrainian photography to the forefront and creates links between artists, curators and researchers from different parts of the world: Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Central Asia, Northeast Asia, -United. The eighth edition of the festival was scheduled to take place in Odesa from May 19 to 22, 2022. Russia's military invasion of Ukraine, however, changed everything. On February 24, 2022, an all-out war started in Ukraine. From now on, Kateryna Radchenko, director and curator of Odesa Photo Days and the festival team are working to relay the situation in Ukraine throughout the world and to support documentary photographers and artist-photographers affected by the war. 

Opening, in the presence of Alex Blanco, Yana Kononova and Daria Svertilova, Friday 13.05.22 © Marc Meinau / Views of the exhibition © Daria Svertilova

Exhibition presented at Stimultania, Strasbourg, from May 13 to September 17, 2022, at Carré d'Art, Center culturel Pôle Sud, Chartres-de-Bretagne, from January 20 to March 4, 2023, and at Center Claude Cahun, Nantes, from May to June 2023.

As part of the European Heritage Days in Strasbourg and on the occasion of the Biennale Traces in Villeurbanne, Stimultania projected On war and home by Daria Svertilova, a compilation of testimonials from students who posed for the series Temporary Homes. The film is also available online here.

FOR FURTHER