Karina Synytsia
ONE WITH THE OTHER.
SPATIAL DIALOGUES.Karina Synytsia & Nastasiia Leliuk
by Mala Gallery of Mystetskyi Arsenal, 2023
Kyiv, Ukraine.

Exhibition Participants:
Karina Synytsia & Nastasiia Leliuk.

Curators of the Exhibition:
Natasha Chychasova, Andrii Myroshnychenko,
And Nadiia Chervinska The exhibition of the works of Karina Synytsia and Nastasiia Leliuk attempts to expand the hard topics: awareness of the war’s scale, living in pain and its excess, loss of home, and the disappearance of the usual world. These fragments make up all of us today—both when alone and when among people. We are caring when we love and uncompromising when we stand up for ourselves. The material world has become too unstable and fragile, reduced to memories of places, landscapes, and objects that are often impossible to reproduce in imagination and find physically. However, all things become heroes of their circumstances. Objects around us, their condition and location testify to time.

Cities and towns under occupation, scorched houses and apartments, black voids of windows, burnt fields, and crushed concrete constitute the material circulation of war. Looking at the endless flow of destruction, in which you can no longer distinguish ruination from ruins, you suddenly ask yourself: how can rough surfaces and cold metal, something that looks so uncomfortable from the outside, become close and give a feeling of security?

The gallery space is divided into two parts. The first hall of the exhibition is a public area—a space of insecurity and destruction. Here there is a constant threat from all sides. You become vulnerable due to the very fact of entering the collective, due to opening up to the world. The second exhibition hall is a controlled area where an unsteady sense of security appears; it is a space that you create yourself. Thanks to the curtains embroidered by artists, you feel safe here, even secretive. These textile objects are a reminder of the native home, a reproduction of its presence. 

The exhibition also includes photographs of people hiding in shelters. These were the elements of the previous Mala Gallery project called “One with the other. Spatial dialogues. Dreamscape” by graphic designer Dasha Podoltseva, architect Yelena Orap, and composer Oleksiy Shmurak. In this case, the common refrain is a comfortable personal space and the trauma of its violent absence.
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Photo: Oleksand Popenko
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Design & Layout: Denys-Kamyl Levadny