Film &Video
Regular Places
2015 / 2022
HD video, 16’37’’
The film Regular Places was made in 2015, shortly after Russia annexed Crimea and ignited the war in Donbas. The confrontation between supporters of an independent Ukraine and European integration on the one hand and «separatists» who wanted to join Russia on the other strongly affected the city of Kharkiv. The street confrontations that ended with the defeat of the pro-Russian movement left behind traumas that marked the city for several years. In the film, the sounds of violence from the past break into scenes of the relatively peaceful life that followed. However, in the case of both Kharkiv and the whole of Ukraine, it was a mistake to believe that violence and confrontation with Russia had been overcome. The public places in the city center of Kharkiv where activists fought some years ago were destroyed by Russian artillery in this year. The film was extended to include images of this destruction because the current war is a continuation of the outbreaks from the past and will forever change our future.
Mykola Ridnyi
The film was screened and exhibited at «All the World's Futures». 56th Venice Biennale for Contemporary Art (2015), «Phone Calls From the Cemetery and Other Stories», Academy of the Arts of the World, Cologne (2015; «Our National Body», Arsenal City gallery, Bialystok (2015); «A Sense of History», the Video Art Collection of Neuer Berliner Kunstverein at Nordstern Video Art Center, Gelsenkirchen (2016); «Forecast for Yesterday», Blockhaus DY10, Nantes (2016); «Your Country Doesn't Exist», Art Radionica Lazareti, Galerija Otok, Dubrovnik; Multimedia Culture Center, Split; Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rijeka; Gallery Nova, Zagreb (2016 / 2017); «The Image of War», Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2017); «Facing the Wall», Labyrinth City gallery, Lublin (2018); «Material Nation», Urania Berlin (2022), A Letter from the Front program in Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Haus der Künste, Munich (2022) and other venues. It’s been acquired to the public collections of Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich and Neuer Berliner Kunstverein.
Installation view:
«All the World's Futures», 56th Venice Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2015. Photo: Alessandra Chemollo / la Biennale di Venezia
