Wounds Leave Scars

This project unites two artistic practices from Russia and Ukraine. Art is sometimes dramatic, uncomfortable and emotional, but it reflects the reality of today. Life has drastically changed for both artists. War has become for them as for millions of other people, a borderline dividing their life into before and after. War forced Ukranian designer Oleksander Pinchuk to leave his home. He found his temporary home in the Netherlands, in Bergen op Zoom. Young Russian ceramic artists Yuliya Batyrova and Marat Mukhametov had to leave their homeland, their well-established studio in Moscow and start their new unknown life in the rural area of Turkey. For both practices last six months was the time to express their reflection in their main media. They both talk about the consequences of war, about the measure of guilt and about wounds that leave scars which will stay forever.

 

Exhibition ‘Wounds leave scars’ took its name from the ‘Scars’ table. “This collectible design object is about wounds, about impacts, about pain, about feelings and about the fragility of our inner world. Traces of events touch us deeply in our hearts, bodies and souls. And the war is the worst of all possible experiences. Wounds leave scars behind. Whatever we do, it stays with us forever.” – Olexandr Pinchuk

 

"This exhibition is our voice against the war in Ukraine. The core of these works are based on photo reports of the people trapped in the epicentre of the war and the destroyed cities. Our objects take contextual grounds from the works of Russian philosophers and researchers A.S. Solzhenitsyn and N.V. Epple on the uneasy past of Soviet Russia. We are certain that the current practice of hiding the truth about the tragic pages of the Soviet past, spread in Russia, has made a new major war in Europe possible. We are convinced that it is of crucial importance not to remain silent, which is why we have been rebuilding a workshop in Turkey and dedicated the last six months to a series of works on the theme of war and protest against Putin's regime. These works are an attempt to understand the current situation and resist the rhetoric of hatred and the justification of imperial ambitions.” - Yulia Batyrova and Marat Mukhametov