BORDER
Residence Sorry No Rooms Available
Korydor Gallery, Uzhgorod
December 17, 2022 – March 20, 2023

The curators of the exhibition: Semen Khramtsov and Rina Khramtsova

Report group exhibition of residents:
Semen Khramtsov
Rina Khramtsova
Polina Shcherbyna
Luka Basov
Viktor Pokydanets
Ruslan Tremba
And the invited participant of the exhibition Vadim Vadimovich O.

“Hotel”
Rina Khramtsova, 2022

“Oi, the sun is bright” 2022″
Rina Khramtsova
From solar symbolism to grills on the windows. “Sonechko” is the most popular type of metal protective structure. The variety of performance and use knows no bounds, although it defines more than understandable boundaries by itself.

“Kherson cancer”
Rina Khramtsova

“Polina”
Rina Khramtsova
A randomly found, broken or torn piece of wood with growths. The deformed tumor-like shape of the tree actually forms its unique pattern. But inside the wood can hide juices that turn into fragrant sweet resins. The tribute is dedicated to the artist Polina Shcherbyna.

“I saw an orc”
Semen Khramtsov
My childhood was spent in the USSR. Then cockroaches were everywhere. They lived harmoniously next to the Soviet people. At the beginning of the 90s, cockroaches disappeared very sharply. My grandfather joked that they went with the communists.
A few years ago I started noticing cockroaches. Big, black and impudent. On a summer night, they could come out in flocks from basements right in the center of Kherson to scare passers-by. “Fuck sign” – I thought. And here they are back…

“I will never be forgiven”
Rina Khramtsova
Gypsum busts of T.G. Shevchenko, which imitate the process of the disappearance of form, but meanings remain even in Kobzar’s barely legible images. Photographs with an inscription on the pedestal complement the plaster casts. The author touched me with his frankness and inability to express himself, he seems to apologize for his inscription, but never dares to say anything more.

“Hutsul with a (big) surprise”
Semen Khramtsov
“Hutsul souvenir, when the movable part is lowered, “dignity” appears”
A long-lived Carpathian souvenir that has been praised many times over is the “Hutsul with a surprise” pen.
In my interpretation, I also see a border guard with a barrier and the not-so-futile ability of the Transcarpathians to “lay a big rod” on some things.

“Severe playgrounds”
Rina and Semen Khramtsov
Neglected playgrounds, unsuitable for use, which cause a heightened sense of self-preservation, they turned into lonely abandoned metal samples.

“Tysa River”
Semen and Rina Khramtsova
Tisza is a river, the largest left tributary of the Danube. It flows within the borders of Ukraine, Hungary and Serbia, partly along the border between Ukraine and Romania and Hungary, as well as along the border between Slovakia and Hungary.
According to the agency, since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of the territory of Ukraine, this is the 12th case of finding a drowning person on the Ukrainian-Romanian river section of the border.

December 15
A man’s body was found on the banks of the Tisza River on the border with Romania. “The man was without signs of life. No documents were found with him. Measures are currently being taken to establish the identity of the drowned man.”

August 21
A group of five men of conscription age were stopped not far from the border, on the outskirts of the village of Nizhnya Apsha, Tyachiv district. All the detainees are residents of this settlement. They were going to illegally cross the Ukrainian-Romanian border by the Tisza River

September 10
On September 9, border guards detained 14 men near the border with Romania and Hungary. The agency reported that the detainees tried to cross the Tisza River to the EU.

September 25
In Transcarpathia, border guards detained eight people from Kharkiv region who wanted to cross the border illegally. One of the men had a life jacket with him and wanted to swim in the Tisza River. And three men and a woman tried to cross the border through the mountains.

October 14
Border guards detained two men in diving suits near the border with Hungary. They tried to get to Hungary through the Tisza River.

September 25
Two men who wanted to cross the border across the Tisza River were rescued in Zakarpattia.

November 28
In Transcarpathia, border guards detained a 19-year-old man from Kharkiv who wanted to illegally cross the border to Romania through the Tisza River

December 2
A man’s body was found in the Tisza River in Zakarpattia with signs of being underwater for a long time.

“Pallet of tastes” of the residence”
Semyon Khramtsov
Such great artists as Luka Basov, Anton Slipakov and many others ate in the Uzhgorod pub “Palette of Tastes”. The creative logo of the canteen very well reflects the essence of each artist residency – an artist should not be hungry. I recreated the logo of this popular company by representing it on a real palette, and for a month we used it as a kitchen board and sometimes as a palette.

“Obschepyt”
Viktor Pokydanets

“Vestige”
Rina Khramtsova
Teeth, x-ray picture

“Empfängnis Schweinehund”
Semen Khramtsov
In many cultures, a pig is a dirty animal, just like a dog is a creature that eats its own excrement. But I don’t think so, because a dog is a man’s friend, and a pig is a sacred creature for a Ukrainian. But the creatures they produce into the world raise questions.

Vadim Vadimovich O

“The place of healing is constant homeless body”
Polina Shcherbyna
One of the most severe levers for forced migrations is war. It is impossible to plan an escape from reality, one can only grope for light in the darkness, intuitively try to survive.
When I think about the present, I think about the people around me, about people who were not ready for this life, including myself. The history of wars is terrible and merciless. The evolution of consciousness, unfortunately, has strong evasions, today it is once again clear to everyone, on the example of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
Delving into my childhood memories, I remember a metal Soviet folding table covered with a tarpaulin, which was in every Ukrainian family. It was laid out by the owners of the house in case the guest was delayed and stayed overnight. Therefore, for me, the folding bed is a certain symbol of a temporary shelter, a place of rest, which, under certain circumstances, can turn from temporary to permanent.
The image of hope that sprouts from the body is a kind of healing place for the soul, a place where branches of new life sprout.
Even in the most difficult times, there is a belief that everyone can find their own place or create it.

“Black Point”
Semyon Khramtsov
A point of time when you cannot move, do, create… You are sucked in by the Black Hole of awareness of war, occupation, shit and the end…

“Boy”
Luka Basov
The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben said in an interview that “thought is the courage of hopelessness” ─ an insight that is especially pertinent for our historical moment, when even the most pessimistic diagnosis as a rule ends with an uplifting hint at some version of the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. The true courage is not to imagine an alternative, but to accept the consequences of the fact that there is no clearly discernible alternative: the dream of an alternative is a sign of theoretical cowardice; it functions as a fetish that prevents us from thinking through to the end the deadlock of our predicament. In short, the true courage is to admit that the light at the end of the tunnel is most likely the headlight of another train approaching us from the opposite direction.
Slavoj Žižek’

“I’m home!”
Ruslan Tremba

Exhibition documentation – Photo credit Mykhailo Melnychenko

The participants’ residencies and exhibitions were made possible thanks to the support of:
European Cultural Foundation
The beaux-arts Academy in Paris
Emergency Support Initiative
Visual Culture Research Center
Creative Europe
UEAF – MOCA NGO
House of Europe