Participating artists:Alexandra Velichko (HGB), Anastasiia Yakhtantsidi (HGB), Anna Rotaenko (invited speaker), Lesya Kuranova (Burg Halle), Yura Yurkin (invited speaker)
Moderation: Daria Makarova (HGB)
Venue:HGB, Raum 2.41
Wächterstraße 11
04107 Leipzig
Partner:The event is an initiative of Daria Makarova and is supported by the HGB's Diversity Development Project.
What is Russian? What is behind this unrepresentative generalisation that equates and erases almost 200 official national and ethnic identities of the Russian Federation? What does „Strangers Identity“ mean and why is it important right now to talk post-Soviet and decolonial about the still imperial Russia?
Five panellists with experience of life in Russia and mixed national identity talk about their experiences of life in Russia and in emigration. What does their apolar identity, woven from multiple contexts, mean to each of them, and why is the concept of the nation-state misleading?
At the end of the event, the panellists will discuss with the moderator and the guests what decoloniality means to them in the context of imperial Russia and how they work with debunking the dangerous stereotype that everything that comes from Russia is automatically Russian.
Alexandra Velichko (she/her) is an artist, photographer and graphic designer from Russia with a focus on contemporary photography. She currently lives in Halle, Germany, and studies photography and media at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig.
Anastasiia Yakhtantsidi (she/her) is an artist who works with beeswax, memory, forests and archives and currently lives in Leipzig. Her work revolves around the memory of places and the development of an artistic approach to natural historiography.
Anna Rotaenko (she/her) is an artist born in 1990 in Kharkiv, Ukraine. She lived in the Russian Federation and studied at the Rodchenko School and in the workshop of Sergei Bratkov (Ukraine), among others. In her work, she deals with social issues and the expanded concept of documentary film. Rotaenko's projects are mostly text-based and take the form of installations - including interactive formats - as well as videos. Her focus is on the interface between digital and physical spaces, developing multimodal narratives that explore the entanglements of human and non-human experience as a result of extractivist politics.
Lesya Kuranova (she/her) is an interdisciplinary designer from Moscow, Russia. She lives in Halle and studies at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle. In her practice she uses graphic design as a tool for writing and designing.
Yura Yurkin (no pronouns) is a writer and decolonial activist based in Essen, Germany. He works on projects related to the identity of the Komi-Permyak people, who historically live in the north-east of the European part of Russia and to whom he himself belongs. In the past, he has worked in various Russian museums and cultural projects.
Moderation: Daria Makarova (HGB)
Daria Makarova (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist and researcher from Russia. She has been living in Germany since 2022 and studies media art in the Expanded Cinema class at the HGB Leipzig. She has also been a Fridrich Ebert Foundation fellow since 2023. Her practice focuses on the recontextualisation of historical narratives and patriarchal power structures, which she transforms into poetics with a subversive effect. Central themes of her work are the exploration of language forms, state violence and the attempt as a utopian act.
