Culture

The Artist and the Ukrainian Front

Zhanna Kadyrova ponders the role of art in war—and finds new meaning in bullet-pierced walls.

Matt A. Hanson January 16, 2025

Kadyrova's installation “House of Culture” sits atop a mound of dirt, made of found bullet-pierced material and holds a chandelier from a Soviet-era community center in Beryslav. The piece is part of her Flying Trajectories display. Copyright Galerie Rudolfinum. Photo by Ondřej Polák.

In the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Ukrainian contemporary artist Zhanna Kadyrova fled her home and studio in Kyiv, taking refuge in the Carpathian Mountains. There, she found a vacant house and transformed it into an art studio, where she now lives and hosts exhibitions to showcase work created by an array of local artists. Shifting her creative focus from a years-long project to repurpose monumental, Soviet-era mosaic murals, Kadyrova is now focused solely on art that reflects the desperation of life in the midst of armed conflict.

In Kyiv, between 2023 and 2024 , the PinchukArtCentre showcased a prolific display of Kadyrova’s works as Flying Trajectories, a six-month, one-woman show chronicling Kadyrova’s oeuvre as a painter, sculptor, videographer and multimedia installation artist, from her early post-Soviet-era upbringing to the present. One installation, “House of Culture,” is a structure sitting atop a mound of dirt, made of found bullet-pierced material, holding a chandelier from a “house of culture” (Soviet-era community center) in Beryslav, which was occupied by Russia until late 2022.

With at least 438 Ukrainian cultural and historical sites destroyed since February 2022, the “House of Culture” installation embodies Kadyrova’s determination to resist, revitalize and foster Ukrainian art in spite of the destruction that surrounds her.

ZHANNA KADYROVA, AS TOLD TO MATT A. HANSON:

My plan for 2022 was to work on a project in which people from across Ukraine would mail me pieces of historic mosaic murals from the Soviet era. I have not started it, because when the war started, I put all of my previous projects on pause. I can’t think about projects before the war. Now, I just work on the current Ukrainian situation.

In our situation, it is not possible to plan. After the 24^th of February [2022], we ended making plans in general. I was also planning to come back to Kyiv to do some things. Now, I can’t, because I don’t have electricity, heat or water in my studio.

I can just try to survive. It’s really a horrible situation. Civilization ended on the 24^th of February. Now, we live in the Middle Ages.

Now, I’m more interested in how my mother will live. My mother lives on the 12th floor. She once went 20 hours with no electricity, without heat in her flat. That’s more of a problem than the problem of artwork.

I can’t be a normal contemporary artist; I can just be someone who has experience and who can share experience. Now, I just show work about the war.

I created the project Palianytsia in 2022. In the first week of the war, we caught a lot of Russians with this word, because they can’t pronounce “palianytsia” correctly. It means “bread.” We found river stones and cut them to create “bread,” placing them on a dinner cloth. Palianytsia is popular and has already exhibited more than 20 times in nine months.

Kadyrova's Palianytsia, which she created in 2022. Copyright Galerie Rudolfinum. Photo by Ondřej Polák.

I don’t know if I’ll be alive tomorrow or not. The day before yesterday, there were 80 rockets that Russia sent to Kyiv — 80. Just 20 rockets arrived, and I spent six more hours on the train because of delays, no electricity. There were 6 million refugees inside the country, moving to the Western region.

It’s absolutely a humanitarian catastrophe. Russia is a terrorist state and they terrorize us, they kill us, rape us. It’s terrorism.

I can’t work and spend my time thinking about previous peaceful projects; it’s not possible. I must collect as much money as possible for my army, for the people who defend me and my mother. If Russians come, they’ll kill or rape us. It’s our reality.

I can’t comment on my previous practice. I spent a lot of time discovering mosaics and monumental themes, but not now. Now, I’m more interested in how my mother will live. My mother lives on the 12^th floor. She once went 20 hours with no electricity, without heat in her flat. That’s more of a problem than the problem of artwork.

I want to be optimistic, but I can’t be optimistic in this moment. Now, I absolutely have a moratorium for each practice that was before the 24^th of February. If the war finishes, I’ll come back to that project.

Edited for length and clarity.

Matt A. Hanson is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul, Turkey. He has written for Artforum, ArtAsiaPacific and the
International Center for Journalists, among many other outlets.