Other Storms

2024; 2048 × 1152, 24fps, stereophonic audio; 06:58
By Teta Tsybulnyk, Elias Parvulesco
Based on Do ridnoho bereha / K rondumu beregu / To the Native Land (1974, Vadym Kyslov).
The fabric of language always tends to enchant and enshroud. The seamless veil of ideology weaves together the verbal, the visual, and the phonetic to make meaning self-evident. What does it take to unravel this siren song, this lullaby? How do we puncture those comforting fictions? What repressed meaning can leak through the cracks of time, the voids of loss, the ruptures of war?
The Russian war against Ukraine relies on the discourse of Soviet imperialism. The video works presented in the exhibition focus on the Soviet representation of the two Ukrainian localities, Enerhodar and Heroiske, that have been occupied by Russia since 2022. Colonized by the ideological narratives of the 1970s and labeled with Soviet toponyms, these landscapes are revisited from a new point in history, with our ears attuned to false notes, our gaze searching for gaps and sutures.
Other Storms (2024) deconstructs the linguistic and audiovisual clichés of Soviet propaganda using footage from a 1974 documentary about the village of Heroiske (‘Heroic’) on the Kinburn Spit. The romanticized image of a native countryside, an exemplary ‘periphery’ to be cherished and exploited, is imbued with heroic mythology and military modernism. The language reveals imperial ambitions to colonize indigenous landscapes and ways of life, subordinating them to the needs of the ‘great Soviet land’.
*** russian federation is a terrorist state that should be held responsible for all its crimes. ***
Public screenings:14.09—14.12.2024 as a part of Land(e)scapes. Recognizing Fragmentarity, Leipzig, Germany