A.P.I.S.E.
A personal project in the showcase space of the main building of the Cité internationale des arts (Paris,2024)

The concept of the archive develops from a fundamental turn that occurred in Fedora’s artistic career in 2022, following the full-scale military invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine. This turning point is expressed in the realization of the impossibility of further aestheticizing global philosophical concepts and their rejection in favor of a direct documentary evidence of personal and collective events in which the artist is both a participant and witness.
The open archive consists of five types of objects:
- Textile records of Ukraine's territorial losses
- Kitchen utensils melted as a result of a Russian missile strike
- Childhood drawings by the artist, brought from the family apartment in Kyiv, where she grew up
- A photograph taken during a childhood trip to the Crimea, which was not occupied at the time
- <...the artist plans to further expand the archive...>
The methodological basis of A.P.I.S.E. is based on an archaeological approach to the presented objects: the idea is to give them space to be seen, without imposing on them the task to construct generalizing conclusions. These objects signify nothing but themselves, they do not turn into symbols or metaphors. Their presence alone is sufficient.
As for the shortage of aesthetic solutions, we dare to note that this very shortage only proves the fact that when art is unable to subdue a catastrophe, the only thing it can do is point to the existence of such territories of experience where there is only space to admit the impossibility of further conceptualization in relation to the catastrophe that has occurred.
Étienne Michurins

photos by Ivan Erofeev
views of the exhibition


all photos: Jenia Filatova
view of the exhibition



