Zhanna Kadyrova. Anxiety series. 2022. Hand embroidery by anonymous Ukrainian authors, machine embroidered text, textile

Series description

The series Anxiety (also known as Air Alert) was started by Zhanna Kadyrova in the first months of the full-scale invasion of 2022, while she was in the village of Berezovo in the Zakarpattia region. The impetus came from traditional embroidered paintings that decorate interiors in this region — two such works by the artist were gifted by a local resident, ninety-year-old Mrs. Olena. Later, the artist began independently searching for similar embroidery at auctions or local markets. Mostly these are everyday scenes: rural landscapes, a meeting of a young man and a girl, feeding livestock, etc. The artist intervenes in these peaceful scenes and applies the inscription “Air Alert” on top of the finished image with a sewing machine (the first copies of the series were manually supplemented by an amateur craftswoman from the village of Berezovo). The artistic gesture of intervention in the finished work debates the constant and ubiquitous intrusion of the air raid alarm into the daily life of the residents of Ukraine.

Later, traveling through European countries, Kadyrova began creating works with corresponding titles in local languages based on examples of local embroidery, and also added a series of sketches of local landscapes with similar captions. In this way, she highlighted the absence of security guarantees anywhere in the world.