Iryna Loskot
Multidisciplinary artist
BIOGRAPHY
Iryna Loskot
(2001, Mirny, Yakutia/ moved to Kharkiv, Ukraine, in early childhood) is a Ukrainian multidisciplinary artist. Her practice explores the exploitation of the environment and resistance to this exploitation. In her works, Iryna creates a shared space of memory about humans and non-humans. Her approach involves evoking empathy for non-humans by revealing their presence in a person's individual memory. The artist aims to undermine the anthropocentric view through images of blurring the boundaries between human and non-human experiences.
Ukraine in Europe
performance, 2023
Artist talk
performance, 2022
On the future
audio installation, 2024
Taking care of your loved ones in a household often involves caring for the land and plants.
In this broadcast, you can hear the sounds coming from a garden where people are working. This is happening in the village of Ivanivka, Sumy region, which is 36 kilometers from the border with Russia. Every summer, my mother works in the garden to prepare twists of vegetables and jam for the winter, some of which she gives to me.
In the threatening future, due to Russian aggression, if the canning jars are not filled, it puts the entire chain of care at risk. Will they be filled with tomatoes? Will the landscapes I broadcast remain intact?
Camouflage
art–object, 2024
Materials: wood, textile
A piece of camouflage fabric appears on the bark found in the forest in Sumy region. Obviously, the process of adapting the environment to human warfare has begun. This mutation makes it difficult to understand whether it is a human or non-human camouflage.
Migrant from the Garden
participatory project, video, 2024
In honor of my birth, my grandfather planted a plum tree in the village of Berezivka, Sumy region. This village was occupied by Russia in 2022 and later de-occupied. Now, because of the danger associated with the proximity to the Russian border, people in Berezivka have stopped caring for the garden and my plum tree is only watered by rain. I am relocating the plum tree to a safer area, even though it will have to start life "from scratch." I suggest that migrants take care of the relocated tree so that they do not forget to take care of each other.
The tree was planted in the city of Przemysl (Poland), in the garden where there is a shelter for Ukrainian refugees. In the video, the artist and the displaced people who volunteered to help with the gardening plant a tree. Serhiy from Nova Kakhovka sincerely promises to take care of the plum tree.
*photo by Olga Filonchuk
Defocusing
ready–made, 2024
Man, animal, and earth merge with each other at the time of death. During life, man identifies himself by contrasting himself with the animal.
The squares, which are the figurative equivalent of human and non-human, are blurred and look fuzzy on this side of the board. This opens the way to blurring the boundaries between the memory of humans and the memory of non-humans and undermines the hierarchy between them.
The work is part of the personal exhibition "In Memory of People and Animals" and is presented at the National House in Przemysl (2024)
*photo by Olga Filonchuk
Memorial
appropriated object, 2024
Material: wood
Usually, the resources of horses are used for transportation, food, clothing, and as a component of film photographs, etc. I am trying to suggest that we abandon the objectifying view of animals and look at the chess piece as a monument made in honor of animals.
The work is part of the personal exhibition "In Memory of People and Animals" and is presented at the National House in Przemysl (2024)
*photo by Olga Filonchuk
Battlefield
installation, 2024
Materials: chessboard, earth
A chessboard is a battlefield for a chess match. The pattern formed by the ground on the board resembles the battlefields on the territory of Ukraine, which are disfigured by sinkholes. The land becomes not only a background, a battlefield, but also a participant in the battle itself: a defense, an enemy, and an object of struggle.
The absence of land in some parts of the board means gaps in the ecosystem due to constant Russian shelling.
The work is part of the personal exhibition "In Memory of People and Animals" and is presented at the National House in Przemysl (2024)
*photo by Olha Filonchuk
In memory of
people and animals
installation, photo, 2024
Materials: photo, candle
This old photo was probably taken in memory of the people in it. The horse/calf in this film photo lived with our neighbors in the village and most likely appeared in the picture by accident.
Film photographs are made from the skin of pigs and cows, fish scales, bones of cattle and ungulates: buffaloes, bulls, yaks, and horses. The representatives of the animal species in the photo may be part of the film on which it was taken.
This candle burns in memory of animals that have suffered from human whims.
The work is part of the personal exhibition "In Memory of People and Animals" and is presented at the National House in Przemysl (2024)
*photo by Olha Filonchuk
In front of the ruins
photo documentation of land art, 2024
The work was created in collaboration with 6th grade pupils of Lyceum No.51 in Lviv, Ukraine.
The future generation creates monuments dedicated to the events of the past. The monuments are created according to the principle that they change over time. The decay of material things coincides with the process of forgetting, which is inherent in time.
Thus, I am thinking about the fluidity of memory. How will the next generations remember today's events after a certain period of time? Will they forget about the material destruction caused by the Russian Federation? Or, on the contrary, will the experience of creating temporary monuments remind them of the current events in which Russia is trying to destroy memory?
The work was created within the framework of the program "Artists After School" Curators: Olga Krykun, Masha Kovtun, Romana Bartunkova.
The Garden
cartoon, 2024
The cartoon is based on the author's real memories. These memories are related to her childhood in the village of Berezivka, Sumy region. In her recollections, the artist recognizes her inability to control the course of events. In this way, the work interacts with Timothy Morton's idea of "dark ecology," in which he calls for recognizing that it is not always in our power to influence phenomena. The work non-verbally asks the following questions: what does it feel like to live in a world that does not belong to us? What does it mean to recognize that something may not belong to us?
At the end of the cartoon, real photos of the place where the story takes place are added.
Composer: Clemens Pool
The work was funded by Artist at Risk
Longing for the plum
video, 2023
In honor of my birth, my grandfather planted a plum tree in the village of Berezivka, Sumy region. The village was occupied in the first months of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and later de-occupied. For some time, I could not return to the village because of the threat from Russia and could only imagine that place and the life of my plum tree. I wondered how the invasion had affected the tree: whether it was alive, whether it had enough water, whether the taste of its fruit had changed...
Worried about my plum tree and homesickness, I sang a wistful Ukrainian folk song called "Tuga za tugou".
Co–authorship: Diana Derii, Kris Voitkiv
Bluebeard
performative documentary play, 2023
Ivano–Frankivsk (Ukraine)
The performance refers to on Charles Perrault's fairy tale "Bluebeard". In this story 8 women were trapped in the secret room. The aim of this work is to tell 8 stories of women from different cities of Ukraine who explore the collective memory of their families. In particular, particularly such events as the Holodomor and two world wars.
Рroducer: Memory Lab Ukraine
Theatre Director: Sonya Slyusarenko
*photo by Sergiy Paliychuk
Birdsong
video, 2023
Birdsong is usually used to convey the harmony of "nature".
The subtitles illustrate the "peaceful" sounds of "nature" presented in the video and the sound that are unlikely to be heard because of the discomfort they cause.
In this way, the delusion nature of the peaceful soundscape is exposed, as well as the invisibility of the problems of exploitation and violence.
The work was created as a part of the "Navigation" project at Jam Factory Art Center (2023)
Curator: Olena Kasperovych
Victory
video, 2023
The video is based on the Soviet TV film "Your Breath, Earth..." (1986). The film praises the work of Ivan Kisenko, the head of one of the most productive kolkhozes in Soviet Ukraine named “Victory". Describing his success, Ivan (a veteran of WWII) compares nature to the enemy and the agriculture work to the battle in the war.
Ivan Kisenko metaphorically compares his action to the chess game: "Nature moves 'white' and the man responds to its moves". So in the second part of the video, I covered the footage with the black squares that remind chessboard and deprive viewers of the opportunity to see the whole picture. In this way, I visualized that the idea of interacting with nature as an enemy in war justifies exploitation as a phenomenon and also underlies the policy of imperialist warfare, which consequently deprives us of life on Earth.
The work was created as a part of the "Navigation" project at Jam Factory Art Center іn cooperation with the Lviv City Media Archive
Curator: Olena Kasperovych
*photo from the gallery by Zlatoslava Kryshtafovych
My-musical
The Musical Collective
film, 2022
Lviv (Ukraine)
The musical is presented in the form of a series of video posters documenting the collective process that lasted for a month. Each poster is cut by a different participant/group of participants, offering a new perspective on the documented events of the music residency. This is a continuation of the original approach, as the absence of a clear script encouraged joint activities even in the absence of a common vision - which in turn supported the practices of self-organization and shared responsibility in this newly formed wartime community.
The residency was held within the framework of the Kindling project from the Baltic Art Center, together with Milvus Artistic Research Center, soma.majsternia, Sorry No Rooms, with the support of the Swedish Institute.
Curator: Olha Marusyn
*photo by Wolfgang Obermair/hoast
Ukraine
reenactment, 2022
Lviv (Ukraine)
*The song "Ukraine" by Taras Petrynenko was performed on stage during a party as part of the Musical residency in Lviv in 2022, curated by Olha Marusyn. The residency took place with the participation of IDPs and volunteers from the independent organisation Soma.majsternia, where they lived their shared experience of the war as a newly formed collective.
The work ironically reflects on the question of love for the homeland and refers to the artist's personal experience of being forced to perform Ukrainian patriotic songs at school events while studying at college. The reenactment of the school performance is an attempt to re-appropriate this traumatic experience and free oneself from an objectifying view of oneself. The props, such as yellow and blue pom-poms made from garbage bags, and the overall choreography are recreated from real memories. The projection on the background is a real performance where the artist participated in 2016.
*photo by Vitalii Garan /91 gallery and Wolfgang Obermair/hoast
Ukraine in Europe
performance, 2023
Oronsko (Poland)
The author performs the song "Ukraine" by Taras Petrynenko, which she was forced to sing at school events in 2016. The choreography and props are based on the artist's real memories. Behind her, a real performance of the band she was a part of is broadcast in honour of the Defender of Ukraine Day.
At the beginning of the song, the performer reads a text about how she was forced to sing this song when she was 15 years old, and now she is forced to sing it in a European city because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Curators: Lia Dostlieva, Andriy Dostliev, Stanislav Mlatsky
*photo by Ewa Szatybelko/Museum of Contemporary Sculpture
Х
GIF, 2022
During the City in Digits course, I got acquainted with a program that searches for matches between photos and thus develops a 3D model. I came up with the idea to take a photo of me and the female line of my family, my mother and grandmother, and see if the program could find a match. It turned out that the algorithm did not catch the connection between our family line. It follows that the program will be able to preserve places, but hardly the memory or proximity that is the meaning of places. Nor can it capture the temporal rather than spatial connection.
For me, the questions arise: how can memory be captured? Does the conservation of urban monuments work as the conservation of the memory of places? What program can be used to capture the temporal connection?
*photo from the gallery – Roman Shyshak
Nuclear war
performance, 2022
Lviv (Ukraine)
The performer throws walnut kernels on the ground in the urban space of Lviv and calls this process "nuclear war". The artist creates the myth of the "walnut kernel war", which echoes Russia's claims of using nuclear weapons. In this way, she demonstrates the artificiality of both myths. In addition, by playing with language, she neutralises the pressure of anxiety caused by Russian psychological operations.
The work was created with the help of the scholarship programme COUNTERMYTH (Totem Centre for Cultural Development) with the support of House of Europe.
*photo by Maksym Shevchenko
2 weeks
action, 2022
Lviv (Ukraine)
After the outbreak of full-scale war, I was admitted as a free student to the Lviv Academy of Arts. After 2 weeks, I was expelled because the students considered my presence unacceptable without selection. I decided to compare my own experience of being a free student at the academy with Joseph Beuys's educational revolution and posted sheets explaining the context and the question: "Is everyone an artist?”
CV
- Education
2018 - 2019
- Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Kary Theatre, Cinema and Television University, BA - puppet theatre actress
2019 - 2023
- Kharkiv National Kotlyarevsky University of Arts, BA - puppet theatre actress
2022
- Transdisciplinary art practicies lab "PlacesInChanges" at Hnat Khotkevych Palace of Culture. "Archeology of the Place",
Course curator: Yaroslav Futymsky, Lviv (UA)
- Intensive course by Piotr Armianowski at LNAA Lviv, (UA)
2024
- Seminar "How art speaks war in the situation of language crisis". METHODFUND Curators: Lada Nakonechna, Kateryna Badianova
- Laboratory of memorialization practices. Past/Future/Art Curators: Oksana Dolgopolova, Olha Balashova, Kateryna Semenuk, Julia Hnat
– Land art school, Curator: Natalia Lisova, Kyiv (UA)
- Residencies
2022
- Soma.majsternia, Lviv (UA)
2023
- "Navigation 2023" program at Jam Factory Art Centre, Lviv (UA)
- Memorylab, Ivano–Frankivsk (UA)
2024
- (AR) at Assortment Room, Ivano–Frankivsk (UA)
- Ukrainian National House, Przemysl (PL)
- “Decentric Circles” Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw and WORK HARD PLAY HARD working group, Warsaw (PL)
– KAIR, Kosice (SK)
- AіR іn Liepaja, Liepaja (LV)
- Publications
2023
- Anna Soucek. "Kunstprojekt "Soma". Ö1Mittagsjournal
- Jakub Gawkowski. “This Show Is Not About the War: Ukrainian Artists in Poland and the Burden of Representation”. E-flux
- Olha Romanska. "Performance by Memory Lab in Ivano–Frankivsk: collective memory through women's voices". Reporter
- Musical. Concert vitan’ . Block Magazine
2024
- Roksolana Ostapchuk. "Works by artists from Kherson and Kharkiv were presented in Frankivsk". MISTO
- Yelyzaveta Karpiuk. "An exhibition by the Memory Lab collective opened in Kharkiv. It explores the themes of memory and corporeality". DTF/magazine
- Catalog “Ukraine on Fire” Laboratory of Contemporary Art “Small Gallery of Mystetskyi Arsenal”
- Workshops
- lend–art workshops at Femmaysternia, Lviv (UA) 2024
- "Touch some grass" WORK HARD PLAY HARD working group, Warsaw (PL) 2024
- SOLO exhibition
- Selected group exhibitions
2022
- "Only Achilles" L'Atlas, Paris (FR) (as part of The Musical Collective)
- Kyiv Dispatch, Ukho Music and InterAKT Initiative, Stuttgart (DE) (as part of The Musical Collective)
2023
- "Greifbar" Saarlandmuseum Modern Gallery, Saarbrucken (DE). Curator: Iryna Yeroshko
- "Countermyth" Totem Cultural Development Centre with the support of House of Europe, (UA) Curator: Olena Afanasieva
– Performance Platform Lublin 2023 festival at Labirynt Gallery, Lublin (PL). Curator: Paulina Kempisty
– Baltic Art Center Gotlands konstmuseum, Visby (SE) (as part of The Musical Collective)
– "How are you?" Ukrainian house, Kyiv (UA) (as part of The Musical Collective)
–"Concert vitan'" Hoast Gallery, Vienna (AT). Curator: Ekateryna Shapiro–Obermair (as part of The Musical Collective)
- Kyiv Biennale “Against the Logics of War“, Assortment Room, Ivano–Frankivsk (UА) Curators: Alona Karavaі, Yarema Malashchuk, Anton Usanov, Roman Khimey. (as part of The Musical Collective)
– Irish Biennial 2023, EVA International Biennale, Limerick (IRL). Curator: Sebastian Cichocki (as part of The Musical Collective)
– 10th Young Triennale: "Consolidation", Museum of Contemporary Sculpture, Oronsko (PL). Curators: Lia Dostlieva, Andriy Dostliev, Stanislav Mlatsky
– "Navigation 2023" Jam Factory Art Center, Lviv (UA).
Curator: Olena Kasperovych
2024
- Assortment Room, Ivano–Frankivsk (UA). Curator: Alona Karavai
- "Women of Lot" Some Рeople, Kharkiv (UA). Curators: Anna Potiomkina, Diana Derii, Kris Voitkiv
- "Hostynets. The offering" 91 Gallery, Frankfurt (DE). Curators: Tamara Turliun, Anton Usanov, Olga Stein (as part of The Musical Collective)
– "As of now, it is quiet" The House of Sound, Lviv (UA).
Curators: Natalia Revko, Valeria Nasedkina, Andriy Linik
– "Artists after school" The Palace of Arts, Lviv (UA). Curators: Olga Krykun, Masha Kovtun, Romana Bartunkova.
- "When the war is over" BLOOM festival, Kyiv (UA), Curator: Oleksandra Khalepa
- ZMINA. Kyiv International Liberty Film Festival House of Cinema, Kyiv (UA)
– "Sense of safety" Yermilov Center, Kharkiv (UА).
- "Playgrounds" International festival of contemporary animation and media art LINOLEUM, Kyiv (UA)
- Awards
- Collection
Yermilov Center, Kharkiv (UA)