Zhanna Kadyrova

Zhanna Kadyrova’s practice has focused from the very beginning on forms as different as sculpture, photo, video, performance, and on the exhibition site and space. In her work, the context reveals the rhythm of History on the move – that of a world whose multiple layers disappear behind their immediacy. Often diverting the aesthetic canons of the socialist ideal still present in the heritage of contemporary Ukraine, Kadyrova’s perspective is partially informed by the plastic and symbolic values of urban building materials. Thus, ceramics, glass, stone, and concrete enter the spotlight of her work. Kadyrova was working on several site-specific projects before the war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine in February 2022 changed all her plans. She started working on the humanitarian project PALIANYTSIA from her new home in the Carpathian Mountains, and the project has already been exhibited worldwide. Zhanna is now back in Kyiv and producing new works about war. They were shown within her first significant retrospective, recently opened at the Kunstverein Hannover (Germany).

Zhanna Kadyrova, Russian Rocket, 2022, video still, Ukraine, courtesy of the artist;