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ZHANNA GLADKO

TRAFFIC PAPERS

(BELARUS)

 

During the festival Zhanna Gladko played the role of the «taxi driver» for Ukrainian artists, directors, curators and researchers – women who play an important and active role in the cultural life of Ukraine.

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Each participant was invited to choose a day and time for a trip in Kyiv for professional/personal reasons (meetings, lectures, organizing art events, visiting exhibitions, helping transport things, purchasing materials, etc.) 

During the trip the artist had a conversation with passengers on their attitude to driving and being on the road in Kyiv (for example, reasons for (not)knowing how to drive), as well as questions related to their artistic practice, views on the development of the cultural situation in Kyiv, contemporary art. Zhanna Gladko also asked passengers to talk about what they consider important cultural centres of the city.

 

Zhanna sees this action as a way to help the participants get around the city to do what they need for personal and professional reasons. For the Belarusian artist, this is an important experience in interaction and studying a city from a certain perspective, through the prism of others – the views of active women who influence the development of culture in Ukraine.

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The main theme that concerns the artist is the solidarity of cultural communities in Kyiv. She will attempt to identify similarities and differences in the situations in Ukraine and Belarus.

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The results of her work were represented in the form of a car installation at the Podil bus station.

 

Zhanna Gladko is a Belarusian artist living and working in Minsk. Since 2015 she has been editing the encyclopedia INDEX on KALECTAR.org – a research platform for Belarusian contemporary art. The artist’s main project is Provoking Strength (2011-2018), whose works and ambivalent images are aimed at rethinking and deconstructing such broad concepts as gender policy, religion and culture.   

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