Object "Stone embroideries of Nova Kakhovka"
The way we remember
Ukraїnka Gallery. Kyiv, Ukraine, 2025
Curator: Sasha Nabieva
Photo: Stas Kartashov, Anna Soli
“How We Remember” is a cliché expression we use when we call on listeners to turn to collective memory or when we strengthen our argument with “common knowledge.” It is precisely this phrase that the curator of this year’s DOCU/SYNTHESIS program, Sasha Nabiieva, chose as the title of the exhibition, the result of a year-long interdisciplinary laboratory for artists.
The leitmotif of the exhibition, which presented both group and individual projects, however, was not the commonly known or collective memory, but rather forgetting, or forms of personal “memories” that have found no place in broader society. All participants were given access to the War Archive platform and could choose whether to work with its media documents or with their own collections.
The compact exhibition space at Kyiv’s Ukraїnka Gallery is occupied mostly by video installations. The gallery — despite its white walls, hard to call a white cube (an attic with a balcony and blind arched windows) — sets the tone for a non-linear viewing experience, a kind of journey through screen-portals.
