Disclaimer: This letter was presented and distributed enveloped in the frame of Blakytna Troyanda (June–July, 2023), the group show at HOS gallery, curated by Taras Gembik and Vlad(a). The exhibition aimed at putting together various queer artistic and activist approaches developed under the conditions of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (2014–2023).

Image credits: Installation view: Adam Gut, HOS Gallery.

Letter

To whom it may concern,

With this letter, I kindly invite you to engage in dialogue with the uncertainty that shimmers in our differences, the ones accompanying traces of the other, the other self, the other them. This communication is grounded in hospitality and openness to the overlooked potential of a body—its capabilities-to-come, the sluices saturating lived experiences with hope.

On February 24, 2022, a vast array of people, situations, environments, thoughts, discussions, emotional tones, associative links, and unexpected connections across the heart of Europe were abruptly diverted from their familiar paths, confronting the harsh transformations. The long-standing East-European adage, “it is true as far as it is absurd,” struggles to make sense of the recent shifts in collective experiences—namely, the brutal war and the extensive murder of civilians. It may not be nonsensical to suggest that what we refer to as the commonly-shared realm is not a general state, but rather a fragmented living environment emerging from the pulsating ruins of a shattered world.

The shift from the collapsed order of things to the inevitably mutating and turbulent environment of life appears to be constrained by the binary divisions of a militarized mindset. According to this perspective, one can only be classified as either a soldier or a woman, a victim or an enemy, a Ukrainian-speaker or pro-Russian, a hero or one who is saved, civilized or savage, ‘us’ or ‘the other’, victory or defeat, and so forth. However, even though the state of war inherently involves the opposition between defense and aggression, the validity of other binary oppositions must be challenged.

If the colossal loss is already unfolding, and the transition has already begun, is it truly worthwhile to base the emerging world on the old exclusions? These exclusions often marginalize those who contribute to care for the civic sphere, as well as transgender and gay individuals, indigenous peoples from the occupying country, and internally displaced persons who have lost almost everything but their (subverted Russian) language.

To clarify: Embracing the inevitable transition means proliferating the diversification of subjectivities, bodily expressions, and situated worldviews. To highlight the political charge of this claim: In the state of war, multiplying the diversity – which is way too fragile under the brutal geopolitical circumstances – is the prior tool to disarm aggression and not to lose what is defended.

You’re aware that binary distinctions fail to suppress the vectors of desire that reach towards the unknown and the otherness that exists within us, beyond us, and through us. These vectors reveal themselves in peculiar fears, fringe fantasies, haunting memories that stimulate the imagination, compulsive dancing, and the sheer delight of bodily transformations… And even war cannot quell these expressions.

With ecstatic tenderness and fascination of your mismatch with yourself,

O.

Bio: Olexii Kuchanskyi is a PhD researcher at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar and independent film programmer, whose main interests concern the experimental moving image and the mediatization of the extractivist relations within Soviet and ex-Soviet contexts. His/her works have been published in Prostory, transversal, Theory on Demand, e-flux Notes & Criticism, and others. S/he (co-)curated film programs and shows for Kyiv Biennial, Perverting The Power Vertical (PPV) (London), “Sunflower” Solidary Community Centre (Warsaw), Coalmine — Raum Für Fotografie (Winterthur, Switzerland), e-flux Screening room (New York), BAK—basis voor actuele kunst (Utrecht, Netherlands), among others.