01.12.2023-02.18.2023
CATHERINE GFELLER
Voices in Kyiv
Opening on Thursday, January 12 from 4pm
Presentation and dialogues around the project in the presence of the artist from 6:30 pm
Will be present at the event:
Mr. Gilles Carbonnier, Vice-President of the ICRC & Mr. Andrej Lushnycky, Honorary Consul of Ukraine in Switzerland & President of the Ukrainian Society of Switzerland
In 2017, on the occasion of 25 years of Friendship between Switzerland and Ukraine, I was invited to carry out an art project in Ukraine. This project resulted in a book with, among others, texts by Klitschko and Andrei Kurkov, as well as an exhibition at the National Museum Shevchenko in the center of Kiev.
These images show life returning to normal after the war in Donbass in 2014. They give sight and sound of Kiev as it sought to reinvent itself.
After the 2014 revolution, many voices were raised to build a new identity for the city. Streets, squares, buildings had been remodeled, crowds were taking over the urban space, citizens were finding new words to talk about their country. Even if in the collective memory, the images of war were still present, the gathering of crowds in everyday life acted as a response to the massacres, a victory over tragedy. New visions covered them. We were witnessing both a remembrance and an overcoming.
Today, these works take on a new meaning and have become witnesses to the present war. Hidden in the cellars of the museum and then brought back to Switzerland, they will have things to say to us, testimonies of this tragedy which continues and will fully play their role of "Voices in Kyiv".