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Oleg Kharch – Fakemet and others
September 6, 2024, presentation
Double room 1114, Hotel Intourist-Zakarpattia

Text by the author: “We perceive a lot of information every day, without always checking its validity. We are used to believing everything we are told on TV and on the Internet, or simply even on the street. We ourselves are carriers of fakes when we do not check what is happening everywhere. The installation (video work) gives us the right to choose whether to believe what we were told or to find additional information, to check what was said, to rethink every word. Only when we learn to perceive information correctly, we will be able to survive in the conditions of fakes that are constantly surrounding us.

Only now, my re-evaluation has gained completeness, or at least the illusion of awareness of the scale of the historical catastrophe on a personal level, an internal family drama and as a whole for our national Ukrainian and human identities. Reflections (also in a parallel way) on what was experienced by my generation, born in the 60s, in relation to the traditions from earlier generations, parents and even grandfathers are more difficult, this is not my achievement. The experience of the Soviet era is traumatic, negative and personal. In art, visual objects of the Soviet era and textual content are always overt or hidden sarcasm. In particular, in the presentation “Fakemet and other”, I plan to show a video inspired by the experience of serving in the ranks of the army at that time, in which I implement the material of cultural heritage, raising the critical issue of trauma memory. Turning to facts from the pre-Soviet past, or even mythology, is an attempt to reinterpret historical heritage. Which is my artistic expansion”.

The SNRA residency program draws attention to the role of culture and art during the russian-Ukrainian war, aims to implement institutionally critical projects related to cultural heritage (tangible and intangible), development of artistic-cultural institutions. The educational art program of the SNRA residence is created in partnership with the Transcarpathian Academy of Arts.

The SNRA residency program and the participation of Oleg Kharch were implemented thanks to grant support from The Académie des beaux-arts in Paris (French Academy of Fine Arts)
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Photo credit Mkhaylo Melnychenko

Video documentation of the presentation: