It's OK... Circle 2: No one will say my words for me, no one will do my job for me #1
17 June 2023
3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Gathering with perfromances.
First public gathering of the No one will say my words for me, no one will do my job for me circle, featuring the performances’ Territory and People’ by Maria Plotnikova and ‘One by one, Needles poking through, the heart of mine’ by Boji Moroz.
Curator and art critic Kateryna Filyuk gathered this circle, which explores the experiences of Ukrainians during times of war. The public circle gatherings centre on Ukrainian LGBTQ+ makers and these from Eastern Ukraine, who had to flee, for what seems now, forever. Despite being of completely different grounds, both oftentimes still have to fight their own battles while being at the actual battlefield.
This afternoon Maria Plotnikova performs ‘Territory and People’, a practical and metaphorical fight with oneself, the weight of trauma, the weight of violence, and the weight of survivor's guilt. The bodies of those killed and tortured everywhere turn into sand, while other people are left helpless.
Boji with her band Kvirtet will present 'One by one, Needles poking through, The heart of mine'. The musical performance is built on the poem written by Boji in 2023, with an idea to describe the hallucination (of giant roll twists) she experienced periodically in her childhood. In these unknown and unstable times Boji invites the audience to their vivid dream, which slowly becomes a nightmare.
Kateryna Filyuk is a curator and researcher. In 2017-2021 she served as a chief curator at Izolyatsia. A Platform for Cultural Initiatives in Kyiv. She is also co-founder of the publishing house “89books” in Palermo. Filyuk is the founder and affiliate of “Festival Ucraina. La Terra di Confine in Palermo” (2022). In 2020-21, she was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Others Art Fair (Turin). Before joining Izolyatsia, she was co-curator of the Festival of Young Ukrainian Artists at Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv (2017). She has participated in several internationally renowned curatorial programs, including the Young Curators Residency Program at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2017); De Appel Curatorial Programme, Amsterdam (2015-2016); International Research Fellowship at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Seoul (2014); and Gwangju Biennial International Curator Course (2012). She was the editor of the catalog and coordinator of the discussion platform for the First International Biennial of Contemporary Art in Kyiv ARSENALE 2012. She has an MA in Philosophy from Odessa I.I. Mechnikov National University and has been a PhD student at the University of Palermo since 2021.
Maria Plotnikova is a Ukrainian artist working mainly in performance and painting. In 2015, Maria was awarded the Chevening Scholarship, enabling her to enter the Contemporary Arts course at Oxford Brookes University. In 2017, she was awarded the first prize in Ukraine’s biennale festival “Tomorrow that never came” and had a solo show at IZOLYATSIA, Ukraine. In 2021, Maria completed her MFA degree at the School of Art Institute of Chicago, being a Fulbright Scholar. In 2021 Maria cocurated and took part in the performance festival “Proximity” in Chicago, US and did a solo show as part of her residency in the Institut für Alles Mögliche in Berlin, Germany. When the full-scale Russia-Ukraine war started, Maria was in Kyiv but had to leave the country soon after. Now, she is living and working in CeRCCa residency in Catalonia, Spain.
Boji is an multimedia artist and musician from Kyiv. Boji co-create an experimental collective “Kvirtet”. The musical practice Boji started as the main vocalist at the Church of the Transformation in Kyiv, Ukraine. At the age of 18 the artist made her first album "Impulse". Since 2017, she has been experimenting with the actualization of Ukrainian traditional folklore music. Boji in her artistic practice infinitely explores contemporary arts in different mediums : video-art, installation, performance. Presented her projects in Kyiv at GOGOLFEST 2017, Cultural space Akt Platform art factory 2017, PinchukArtCentre 2018, IZOLYATSIA 2020, DZHERELO 2021. In paralel in 2018 Boji released her next album “No position”. Boji first came into the Kyiv night culture scene through her full concert programs in cult Kyiv clubs such as Otel’ and Closer. Later on Boji take a new stage name for the drag performance direction of her work as “Cold Bohdana / Холодна Богдана”. She performed in Kyiv as Cold Bohdana in the MetaCulture club as well on a Glory Ball’s party series and on ICKPA festival. From 2022-2023 the artist is relocated in Berlin where she made her last ukrainian album “СУБВЕРСИВНІ ВИСЄРИ / SUBVERSIVE SHIT TALK”. Boji performed in Berlin at Cashemir Radio, Sophiensaele, TANZTAGE, Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, Historischer Übergang (Berlin, DE).
About It's OK... commoning uncertainties
This circle is part of the multi-year collective art project It's OK... communing uncertainties and narrating different realities. From May 26 to September 24 in the Oude Kerk, for more information about It's OK... look here.