Personal Accounts – a quiet rush

11-channel video & sound installation
2025

“i wonder—how much can one
actually see
before turning mad?
before going numb?

i close my eyes.
enough seeing.
and a quiet rush
floods over me.”

Kafa writes poetry and operates drones. ‘Kafa’ is her military callsign and now her chosen name too. With others from the LGBTIQ+ military she/they fight not only for a free Ukraine, but a Ukraine in which queer love, life and imagination can flourish.

In this cycle of Personal Accounts, eleven woman-identifying, queer and trans survivors traverse a spectrum of patriarchal violence, recounting experiences of structural, physical and psychological harm. This is the violence of Russian invasion and war: of rape, capture and torture. But it is also the engrained, intramural violence of a deeply patriarchal society: of misogyny, queerphobia, transphobia and abuse within families, churches, workspaces, even within the queer community – and yes, the Ukrainian military too. And yet, in the ‘quiet rush’ of everyday practices, this spectrum of violence is punctured, as through poetry, writing, collage, biking, piercings and tattoos, each of these remarkable individuals articulate something of what a free Ukraine is to them.

. . .

Produced with support from the PinchukArtCentre
Special thanks to Insight (Ukraine), the LGBTIQ+ Military

installation views (forthcoming: PinchukArtCentre, Kyiv & MoMA PS1, NYC)
reflection on producing Personal Accounts (a quiet rush) in Kyiv
preview (request access)

. . .

Survivor Offerings

In addition to what is presented (and withheld) in the installation itself, collaborators in Personal Accounts sometimes choose to share supplementary offerings which are made available online. These may be narrations of their experience or practices of survival and wellbeing, such as prayers, poems, playlists, recipes or artworks.

A queer woman who chooses to withhold her name
Daria
Daniil
Daryna
Edward
Emily
Kafa
Max
Pasha
River
Victoria