Ukrainian Meme Forces / discussion

Due to current events, we have decided to change the format of Open Studios Night to a discussion with our residency artists – Mark Chehodaiev and Maksym Khodak, who came to us from Ukraine. The discussion will focus on the ways how media work, and memes as political acts in the context of war.

Come to discuss with us this important topic directly with the artists who are fundamentally affected. Today 4.3.2022 at 6.30 pm in the space of Šopa Gallery and KAIR Košice Artist in Residence.

Mark Chehodaiev (*1997, Kyiv) is a Ukrainian multimedia artist, who is currently studying in Vienna, Austria. In his artistic practice,  he works mainly with space and relationships in space, through which he develops his key themes of presence and memory. He is interested in how the general context coexists with personal experience and in his often performative projects he is collaborating with other artists or spectators.

Mark studied at the department of scenography and cinematography at the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture, and in 2019 he graduated from the contemporary art course at Kyiv Academy of Media Arts and started his artistic practice. From October 2021 he studies at Die Angewandte (Vienna) at the site-specific art department.

Maksym Khodak (*2001) is an artist born and raised in Ukraine who works and studies in Kyiv. He works with the topics of history and the ways of documenting it, collective and individual memory, urban transformations, a critical view on cinema and photography. The optic that unites these distinct topics is a critical rethinking of the Soviet legacy. In addition, Khodak’s works react to the current political situation around him. In his practice, he continues the line of Ukrainian political art of the 2000s.

Khodak considers education as an instrument for shaping political action, so among the artist’s latest interests are attempts to critically comprehend students and changes in their coexistence caused by a pandemic. His interest is due to the desire to find a new way of political action in the art that can influence reality.

Maksym has studied Contemporary Arts at the Kyiv Academy of Media Arts and now he continues his studies in the BA Film Study program at Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Kary University. In 2021 he has received Prince Claus Seed Award and currently is a shortlisted artist for PinchukArtCentre Prize 2022. His work has been exhibited at the Kharkiv Municipal Gallery (2020), < rotor > Centre for Contemporary Arts (2020), Pasinger Fabrik (2019), Cultural space AkT (2018), and others.

The residency is supported using public funding by Slovak Arts Council. The residency is organized in cooperation with Nazar Voitovich Art Residence.