In the space of Crimea Global, the works of the modern Ukrainian artist from Crimea Maria Kulikovska are exhibited

The space of the international conference hosted a very important installation of works by one of the leading Ukrainian contemporary artists from Crimea, Maria Kulikovska. The artist herself has not been to Crimea since 2014, when Russia occupied the peninsula. Many of her works address this trauma of not having access to her homeland and loved ones. 

Three installations – “Scars”, “Clone Army II” and “Folds of Time / Folds of Memory” – are exhibited on the fields of Crimea Global, which interpret the topic of the consequences of Russian aggression in one way or another, primarily through the prism of a woman’s experience.

During all the days of the conference, you can see some of the artist’s works, including fragments of the sculptural installation “Scars” – a long-term series of sculptural casts of Maria Kulikovska’s hands and feet made of ballistic soap. Filling the space with figures/clones made of ballistic soap or epoxy resin became a metaphorical artistic method for the Crimean artist to define her own physical existence, to remind the world of the constant war, regardless of any social place of an emigrant, migrant, or displaced person… Moreover, these sculptures became a reminder that she exists and is alive, but she remembers millions of those who were forced to leave their homes, who remained in the ruins of their homes, those who have already died, killed, and lost limbs, defending the living every day.

«Folds of Time / Folds of Memory» is the next installation present in the space. It is a presentation of the nature of conflict as one of the main research topics of Maria Kulikovska. The folds of material are a visualisation of the limitations of human movement in confrontation, struggle, war, and exile. The folds of time become a way of slowly but gradually releasing the memory of the horrors of war and forced refuge. The casts are made from the artist’s body in exile (for the second time) and the hands of her mother, who was forced to move from central Ukraine to the Crimean peninsula after the Stalinist regime (February 1956) and again forced to move from Crimea to central Ukraine after the illegal annexation of Crimea and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation in February 2022.