ART

Allowing viewers to experience the nation through the first-hand lens of its own people.

Exhibition

Date:

Apr 3, 2024 – May 1, 2024

Artists:

Katya Lesiv, Katia Motyleva, Anya Tsaruk

Curator:

Alina Senchenko

This group exhibition offers a nuanced and critical exploration of the experience of Ukrainian women. Specifically, it focuses on the relationships between mothers, daughters, and sisters and the significant ways in which these have been affected during the invasion of Ukraine. The exhibition highlights the work of female photographers from Ukraine who explore different aspects of intimate familial relationships between women. Katya Lesiv finds strength and empowerment during the initial days of the invasion in her motherhood experience and this deep sense of presence becomes her main source of support during that unprecedented time. Anya Tsaruk reflects on the changing family roles that ensued upon her mother’s arrival in Berlin from the war-torn country. Her work will be accompanied by an audio component of her mother singing traditional Ukrainian lullabies. Katerina Motylova’s work investigates grief, highlighting the pivotal role her sister played as a source of solace when she lost her home and parents to the occupation. These artists delve into different stages of womanhood, creating works that contrast and complement one another.

Her Presence (Womanhood in Ukraine) emphasizes the transformative journey these women have undergone and how they have been empowered as a result.

CURATOR

Alina Senchenko is a Ukrainian artist and curator living and working in Vancouver on the unceded land of Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and the Squamish peoples. In 2015 she graduated from Emily Carr University of Art + Design, majoring in Photography. She has sought to explore the complexity of her immigrant identity, belonging and displacement within her own experience as well as globally. Additionally, her work deals with memory, diasporas, stereotypes, oral histories and reflection on recent events in Ukraine and around the world. She is especially interested in questioning historical narratives through the humble act of recording stories and bearing witness. Senchenko’s practice is founded in photography, with an interest in text, historical images and contemporary archives. While investigating the limitations of each medium within her work she is trying to create a layered understanding of the world around her. Recently, Senchenko developed a profound interest in film and video work which she has been incorporating into her practice.

Senchenko has exhibited locally and internationally: at 560 Gallery (Vancouver) in 2023, Canton Sardine in 2022 (Vancouver), CSA Space in 2019 (Vancouver), Rudolfstrasse 7 in 2018 (Germany), Art Platform in 2018 (Ukraine), Dynamo Art Association in 2017, PLAZA Projects 2016, Print Ready VII 2016, Project Space 2015, Vancouver Art/Book Fair 2015, Access Gallery 2014, and Square Project 2014 (Vancouver). In 2019, she received BC Arts Council Mentorship Grant with Sandra Semchuk, in 2018 she was an honourable mention in the Scorpion and Felix Book Award and was awarded a small run of her book by Publication Studio in Vancouver; in 2014 Senchenko was the finalist for the AIMIA/AGO photography prize.

alinasenchenko.com

PROGRAMMING

FEATURED ARTISTS

Katya Lesiv

Katya Lesiv (b. 1993, Ukraine) is a visual artist and photographer from Ukraine. Currently living and working in Finland. She is educated with an MA from the National Academy of Fine Art and Architecture in Kyiv (2017).

Works with the topics of cyclicality, physicality, emotional and sensitive experience, and motherhood. She works in various media genres such as artbook, photography, object, installation, graphics, and video.

Her particular interest is the exhibition of the book as an object in space. The artbook Lullaby 1 belongs to the world’s top 100 photobooks How We See: Photobooks by Women according to 10×10 Photobooks. Artbook I love you was shortlisted by Aperture PhotoBooks Award in 2022.

katyalesiv.com

Katia Motyleva

Katia Motyleva is a Ukrainian photographer and video maker. She was born in 1988 in Luhansk, Eastern Ukraine. From a young age, she witnessed the rapid change in the political context of Ukraine. Living through the collapse of the Soviet Regime, seeing the impact of Capitalist influence, and experiencing the effects of hybrid warfare between her country and Russia.

Her works explore topics such as the woman’s role in society, gender stereotypes and representations of the female body in art. Katia works with archival images as well as traditional studio-based photography–exploring obsession with socially constructed beauty standards and how political changes can affect the destiny of a woman. Her approach is often rooted in the feminist interest. She highlights the discomfort women are living through, directly drawing on her own experiences.

Through her work, Katia aims to open space for reconsidering the role of the woman. To confront the pressure to conform, acknowledging the twisted ideology of what it means to be a woman.

katiamotyleva.cargo.site

Anya Tsaruk

Anya Tsaruk is a Ukrainian photographer based in Berlin. Following the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, her work now focuses on documenting the consequences of war in her homeland. Through photography, she aims to raise awareness about the war and forced migration as one of its consequences, as well as to honour the resilience and strength of those impacted by it.

Anya Tsaruk's work has received several awards and nominations such as Paris Photo: Carte Blanche Students, Fotografia Europea and Skinnerboox Book Award, and The V&A Parasol Foundation Prize for Women in Photography.

In addition, her project Mother Land, has been featured in several group exhibitions, including the Vonovia Photography Award, PEP - Photographic Exploration Project, Peckham 24, and Utopias Lahti Visual Arts Festival.

anyatsaruk.com