"There are no tyrannies that would not try to limit art, because they can see the power of art. Art can tell the world things that cannot be shared otherwise. It is art that conveys feelings."

 - Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine 

Уяви Україну – Митець як свідок / Imagine Ukraine – The Artist as a Witness

© Alevtina Kakhidze
Curtain for Future / Завіса для майбутнього, 2022
Textile , 2 x 80 x ... cm
textile

When the 2022 invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation started, Alevtina Kakhidze felt that fleeing might be just as dangerous as staying home. She decided to stay in Muzychi, the village on the outskirts of Kyiv in which she lives and where she organises an artist residency program in her house and where her garden functions as her laboratory and her source of inspiration.  She designed two curtains for the  ‘The Artist as a Witness’ in the Parlementarium. One of the curtains is entitled ‘presence’ and urges us to follow the example of plants who are pacifists as much as possible on our planet, the other curtain is entitled ‘future’, where ‘we rebuild our bodies to be like plants’.