Dana Kavelina
For years, since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, I was doing art somewhat connected with war. Back in 2017 in was “Mark Lvovich Tulpanov, a man that talked to flowers”, an animation short about the migrant from Donbass, then “Letter to Turtledove”, a cinematic poem. Inbetween I made series of drawings and texts. Now I understand, that I was privileged to have enough distance to create all these works. Though the outbreak of the war appeared for us as a collapse back then in 2014, years passed and we “adapted”. Maybe this was our big mistake, that we got used to living in two places simultaneously – in a peaceful city and in the country at war. But it was not only us who made mistakes. Economical processes were still successfully taking place between the West and the country that kills it’s citizens and with more or less visibility rapes it’s neighboring territories. Too much of “just business”, that became a partner in crime. But still, time passed, and even for many of us in Kiev the war became a ghost, vaguely present, but never completely absent. The distance that I see now as privilege allowed me to do things like “Letter to Turtledove”, create subtle constructions that evade showing too much shit and blood. Now I am rejected this possibility. I fled to Europe, but my family stayed in occupied South. I don’t see almost any other practice possible, except propaganda that could help to stop the war, the simple work of neurotic repetition: close the sky, close the sky, close the sky over Ukraine.
In joy and sorrow
A bone that revenges
Tree of bones
Machina (from latin "medium"), telos (similar to “body” in Russian) / aim in Greek
Music from the prison
Collective bone
From the threads of silence a pullover for a soldier is sewn
Let us be silent at the negotiation table
Father
Military holiday exposition
Dana Kavelina
born 1995 in Melitopol. She graduated from the department of printing graphics of Kyiv Polytechnic University. She works with text, painting, graphics, video and installation, and creates animated films. She brings an artistic component into active citizenship and street protests. Subject matter of her artwork are personal and historical trauma, vulnerability, perception of war outside the mainstream narratives. Her animated movie About Mark Lvovich Tulpanov who talked to flowers that depicts the events of the military conflict in Donbas through the prism of persona tragedies won a special jury prize at Odesa International Film Festival and an award from the international film festival “KROK-2018”.
https://www.e-flux.com/video/339843/letter-to-a-turtledove/
https://secondaryarchive.org/artists/dana-kavelina/
Facebook: Дана Кавелина