Laktionova
Director, Editor, Visual artist
Unheritage (ongoing)
Film photo, video, photoshop, chalk
Tutor: Andreas Spiegl
EN
Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna
Not enough to be a fully-fledged archive, but also not destroyed enough to be completely forgotten. Unheritage is the project of an artist from Mariupol, a city that was conquered and destroyed by Russia during the Russian-Ukrainian war. Using family archives that she retrieved from her home before the war broke out in full force, but are so old that they have already been damaged by time, the director uses these damages as symbols of remembering and forgetting and makes them the central theme of her work.
The work includes a video animation made from personal and found negatives from Russian-occupied territories of the Donetsk region (Ukraine). Film photos are a reenactment. Using stains from her family film taken from Mariupol, the artist destroys significant cultural objects of Vienna. The photo of the monument to Soviet soldiers, which stands in the center of Vienna, remains intact.
DE
Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien
Nicht genug, um ein vollwertiges Archiv zu sein, aber auch nicht zerstört genug, um völlig in Vergessenheit zu geraten. Unheritage ist das Projekt einer Künstlerin aus Mariupol, einer Stadt, die im Zuge des russisch-ukrainischen Krieges von Russland erobert und zerstört wurde. Unter Verwendung von Familienarchiven, die sie aus ihrem Zuhause holte, bevor der Krieg in vollem Umfang ausbrach, aber so alt, dass sie bereits durch die Zeit beschädigt sind, setzt die Regisseurin diese Schäden als Symbole für Erinnern und Vergessen ein und macht sie zum zentralen Thema ihrer Arbeit.
Austria:
Romania:
Exhibitions
2024 - Solo exhibition Memory Practices, Anca Poterasu Gallery, Bucharest (Romania)
2023 - Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna (Austria)
Statement:
I spent three months in Vienna at the Academy of Contemporary Art working on a project. At the presentation of the project, the vice-rector called me and, while presenting the project and me, talked about the protests of Russians in Russia without making any light of the shelling in Ukraine. I was not given a word at the end. The presentation was not agreed with me.
My will is that words that support the Russians should not be spoken on behalf of me, on behalf of my works. Any dialogue will be possible only when Russia stops the war and Mariupol like other occupied cities and territories returns to Ukraine. I consider any attempt to place my name or my works on an equal footing with the Russian ones or in support of the Russians as manipulation and condemn it.
Russia is a terrorist state!