Exhibitions

The PinchukArtCentre presents a solo exhibition by Ukrainian artist Zinaїda Lihacheva entitled “Mute” in the context of the PAC-UA space. The show presents portraits of female volunteers at the Maidan protests. The installation contains 16 video portraits, shown simultaneously in the space. Together they form a crowd but through the condensed and restrained structure the focus of the installation goes to 16 individual women and their unspoken stories.

Through this work Lihacheva rephrases an understanding of heroism. It gives attention to the role of women during this conflict, revealing them as everyday heroes and by extension the work can be seen as homage to every single women who took part in the protests. 

The preparation of the work came through a deep research into concerns of each on these individuals and a commitment to interact and engage with them. Within the installation, Lihacheva does not verbalise those concerns, creating silent portraits that speak through the faces and postures of each and every women.

Zinaїda Lihacheva, the artist: “Shortly after the revolutionary events of winter 2013-2014 at one of the volunteers’ meetings I noticed that inner turmoil and stress were deep down inside every participants’ soul. I decided to communicate these emotions through voiceless videos. By watching them the viewer involuntary engages into the feelings of heroines and relates to the personal history. This process of a peculiar speechless dialogue illustrates the essence of the exhibition’s title ‘Mute’.”

Alongside the video portraits, artist presents an installation holding artefacts coming from each of the portrayed women.

Together with the exhibition Lihacheva launched a Facebook-page giving voice to the stories and individual narrative.

The show is open on the 4^th floor in the PAC-UA space from May 30 till October 4, 2015.

PAC-UA is a special program line to present new produced works of Ukrainian artists, aiming to research ongoing artistic processes within the country and support strong and long-term collaboration between the PinchukArtCentre and the artists. Since its launch in 2011, the exhibitions by Vasyl Tsagolov, Arsen Savadov, Oleksandr Roytburd, Iliya Chichkan, Mykola Matsenko, Pavlo Makov, Zhanna Kadyrova, Alexey Salmanov, and Sergiy Bratkov were showcased at the PAC-UA. In 2014 within the framework of the PAC-UA a special project Re-consideration was held. It researched the relations and influences between Ukrainian art scene of today and artistic practices of the past.