A Cooperation of Deutsche Künstlerbund e.V. and HyCP Veddel Space
Curated by Yevheniia Havrylenko

Program:

Video Sreeninging –
Thursday, March-23-2023 at 19.00 h

Workshop –
Friday. March-24-2023 from 15.00 – 18.00 h

Co-Cooking – Veddel meets Ukraine –
Sunday, March-26-2023 from 15.00 –20.00 h

The program » Full Scale – Ukraine. How does it feel?« is a response to the Russian invasion that started in 2014 and became full-scale on 24 February 2022. The video selection made by Ukrainian curator Yevheniia Havrylenko is diverse in style and focuses, allowing current experiences an open discussion as varied as possible.

The Hamburg screening at HyCP Veddel Space cooperates with the Deutsche Künstlerbund. It first appeared in 2022 as a special section within the »SAMPLE Europe« series by Deutscher Künstlerbund and features works by Ukrainian video artists and filmmakers. The Hamburg issue updates the program with a workshop for the young artist and an artist dinner inviting the Vedel neighborhood, especially the new Ukraine community living at the Veddel.

ZOYA LAKTIONOVA
Diorama / 2018

Life flows in its everyday reality, but something elusive suddenly changes its course. All that is left is the chance to plunge into memories where everything is preserved, as if in a museum.

»Offscreen voices remember a childhood in Mariupol, happy days by the sea. Together with their schoolmates, they had planted willow trees that still grace the shore more than fifty years later. Today the beach is deserted, and only a few fishermen are waiting for a catch. Even the deepwater port seems abandoned. The armed conflict in eastern Ukraine has changed everything overnight. The holiday region is now a dangerous exclusion zone. What’s left are the memories.«
Annina Wettstein for DOK Leipzig

director: Zoya Laktionova
producer: Nadia Parfan
photography: Zoya Laktionova
editing: Mykola Bazarkin
sound: Andrew Borysenko

Zoya Laktionova website I Instagram

THREE PRACTICES ON REALISM (ALEXANDR LEN, NADIIA ROHOZHYNA) Vale of Tears / 2021

No one ever told us, but we have always known that somehow: no one ever actually carved them out of stone and set them on top of a hill. Instead, from time to time, one of the women felt that her time had come and walked away to the steppe. She came up to the stone mothers as to her sisters. And no one ever saw her again. Meanwhile, a new stone figure appeared on the steppe mound.

Alexandr Len Instagram
Nadiia Rohozhyna Instagram

VITALII HAVURA
Hahai / 2018

The fantasies were inspired by the Avdiivka front-line city. Gas, water, transport — all these are painful issues for residents of Avdiivka. There are constant problems with communications in the city due to shelling by the Russian military. Nevertheless, local people, who traditionally call themselves »Hahai« continue to live on. And strive. Strive for peace, creativity, and beauty.

The video was born out of the project by the VIDLIK PROJECTS organization, whose purpose is cultural decentralization and young artists’ community development throughout Ukraine by involving youth in artistic and social activities. During the short-term expedition to a particular locality, the project team, which includes Vitalii Havura, encouraged teenagers and young people to create art products and gave them the necessary theoretical knowledge and skills for future independent creative activities. The actors in this video are just such young people from Avdiivka.

Vitalii Havura Vimeo I Instagram

VIDLIK PROJECTS YouTube I Instagram

DANIIL REVKOVSKIY, ANDRIY RACHINSKIY
Sky. Invasion / 2022

The video work is intended to show the fragility of the sky and the fear of looking at it inherent to people with traumatic experiences. The compilation of found footage presents the sky with the daily cycle: morning, afternoon, evening, night and morning. This is the sky over Ukraine in various states before and during the Russian-Ukrainian war. At the end of the video, the sun closes up, similar to an explosion of a hydrogen bomb. The sound of the video is the Russian military frequency 4625. One can hear the voice of a man who, in Russian, calls numbers and names without any meaning. According to one version, the frequency 4625 is part of the Perimeter nuclear complex — a complex for automatic control of a massive retaliatory nuclear strike, which was created in the USSR at the height of the Cold War and used by Russia.

Andriy Rachinskiy Instagram

VITALY YANKOVY
Glass House / 2022

After a couple of weeks of evacuation, I reproduced my apartment left in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, on February 24th. »Glass House« is a trip around memory objects connected with home (archetypes of home, tree, way, home decoration), navigating and wandering inside the metaphysical virtual landscape.

Vitaly Yankovy Vimeo I Instagram

ARTUR SOLETSKYI
Eyes Closed, Hands Raised / 2022

At the very beginning of the full-scale invasion, many people hoped that the people of Russia would rise up and stop their government. But their useless thoughts began to give rise only to conversations about »good Russians« as opposed to »bad Putin.« All this sparked the ironic video work, which symbolizes their impossibility of seeing the abyss they have fallen into and what a devastating effect they have on themselves.

Artur Soletskyi Instagram

MARIYA VASILYEVA
Last Supper / 2022

For a long time, I wanted to stage a digital theatre piece in which I would perform a cannibalistic meal by eating from my intestines. In this video, I portray four different characters and invite you to be part of this dinner.

Last Temptation / 2022

The base for this video work is a photo of a torn-apart Russian soldier. The image was found on the Telegram channel »Look for Your Own« (Russian: «Ищи своих»). This channel, created by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine’s initiative, contains photos of the Russian military captured or killed in Ukraine during the Russian-Ukrainian war so their relatives could identify them. In the video, I give the soldier the last moment of intimacy before the final act.

Mariya Vasilyeva website I Instagram

DANYLO HALKIN
To Victory / 2022

The video is a documentation of the action taken place amidst one of the first air raids in the city of Dnipro, where the artist crosses out the writing saying »На Победу« in Russian (»To Pobeda«, a residential area in the city, which in Ukrainian sounds like »Peremoha«; can be translated into English as »To /towards Victory«) and writes nearby »До Перемоги« in Ukrainian (»To Peremoha«). The Ukrainian version also can be translated as »To/towards Victory«; at the same time, it has an additional meaning and can be understood not only as a direction of movement but also as »[to stand] Until the Victory«. So, by doing this action, the artist changes not only the language of the writing from Russian to Ukrainian but also the meaning of the saying, which now, as a motto in times of war, raises the patriotic spirits of the city’s inhabitants.

Danylo Halkin Instagram

SPECIAL EDITION

sameTa (ANNA PRIADKA)
Kali Mantra / 2022

On 8 February 2023, Viktor would have turned 30. Instead,
on that day, I posted a video from his funeral.

A few minutes before Bambi Logan left her house, I asked her to take the camera and told her she had permission to shoot. It’s a funny thing — Bambi used to shoot my first music videos. That’s how we got to know each other a little better.

The white kimono, which was sewn for me overnight, arrived an hour before I went to the funeral. I applied sparkles, and it was almost wedding makeup. Without mascara. Tears at funerals are too predictable.

The burial service was sung for Viktor by a priest of the Greek Catholic Church. I chanted the Kali mantra for all those 18 minutes. And realized that it was not the priest who should lead Viktor’s soul to the light, but only me. So then I began to sing. Pigeons were flying over the crematorium’s roof, and one stayed to listen. I know you heard everything.

The Kali mantra accompanied us through life. I sang it to Viktor with Telegram round video messages when he was at the front. On the third day after he died, although I wasn’t yet sure, I was practicing yoga to this mantra in grandma’s garden. At that very moment, I felt like I lived in a world where you never existed, and at the same time, you were and are everywhere.

In memory of Viktor «Gibson» Nalapshyi.

Filming & Editing: Bambi Logan

sameTa Instagram
Bambi Logan Instagram
Viktor «Gibson» Nalapshyi Instagram

* at our events within the program, you can pick up some stickers with Viktor’s artworks to honor his life and brave death on the front of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

Since 2008, the »SAMPLE« series has been showing works from the Deutscher Künstlerbund video archive. The steadily growing archive now includes work by more than 140 international artists. The screenings foster active networking and exchange between artists.

In 2019, the series was expanded to include »SAMPLE Europe«, a format designed to promote a pluralist Europe, cosmopolitan cultural life, and cross-border dialogue between art institutions. This cooperation will be pursued in the years to come.

Thanks to
Deutscher Künstlerbund e.V.,
Sigrid Melchior and
the Executive Committee

Mit freundlicher Unterstützung
der Behörde für Kultur und Medien
und dem Bezirksamt Hamburg Mitte

Die Zusammenstellung des Screenings wurde unterstützt von der Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa