Experiencing Interruptions?

Easter

At the intersection of found archival and personal material, this work analyses the discursive eclecticism and political eschatology of contemporary Russia that has been used as the new ideological justification for the military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 in a so-called “denazification” operation – a mirror projection of the country’s internal process of leaning towards fascism.
The work studies the prerequisites of a new doctrine of war in modern Russia. Formally, it is built on a speculative polyphony of voices belonging to the older generation of the author’s family. The divisions within this micro-community were defined through origin, geography, class, “low” culture, and the ubiquitous expansion of “high” culture. These elements might have continued to coexist had they not been held hostage by aggressive propaganda, which emasculated all differences and reduced them to a single aesthetic conception of hubris.
The symbolic point of connection for the author is her grandmother of Jewish-Greek-Ukrainian origin, a native of Mariupol, which was destroyed by Russian troops in 2022, who escaped the Nazis during their occupation in 1941–1943.
The paradoxes of language and symbolisms of hostility are displayed in the contrasting archival and video sequences created by the author, where the counterpoint is the pathos of ideologies that foreshadow tragedy and grotesque faith bordering on schizophrenia.

  • Ksenia Yurkova
    Director
  • Ksenia Yurkova
    Writer
  • Ksenia Yurkova
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Short
  • Runtime:
    15 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    December 31, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    4,500 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Austria
  • Country of Filming:
    Austria
  • Language:
    Russian
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Black & White and Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
Director Biography - Ksenia Yurkova

Ksenia Yurkova (1984) is an artist, curator, and researcher, living in Austria. She considers her leading artistic media to be text, photography, video, and installation. Yurkova started her practice as a researcher in the field of political theory and communication theory. The main focus of her interest for a long time was communication and language: the varieties of its substance, the possibility of conversion, its mythological aspect, stereotyping (the question of personal and political self-identification and identification by others), problems of memory, attitudes, and reliance. Lately, the artist has been researching the phenomenon of affect in its autonomous bodily emanation; in its personal and political registers. She focuses on how a stage of individual perception, to which one can relate memory, traumatic recollection, and problems of identity construction, transforms itself into affects of the political body. Coming a long way from political and cultural journalism, Ksenia settled into individual artistic and research practice through organising and curating cultural and art events, which allows the vital critical distance for observation and work with contemporary issues. Her approach is based on methods of language appropriation, over-affirmation, self-reflection, and self-criticism through ironic components inevitably added to the most pressing matters. As an artistic director, Yurkova worked in St. Petersburg-based exhibition centre Tkachi until it was closed due to political censorship. Nonetheless, Ksenia didn’t give up socially engaged practice and launched a festival-laboratory Suoja/ Shelter in Finland and an artist-in-residence research program InSILo in Austria with Emergency slots for the artist under political pressure.
Ksenia Yurkova has taken part in numerous shows and festivals worldwide, to mention Photoireland Festival21; Backlight Festival ’20; Athens Photo Festival ’19, ’17, ’15; Krakow Photo Month ’19; Grandprix Fotofestival ’15; screening at Documenta@15; three times has been nominated to Kuryohin Prize, was awarded stipends from the Austrian Ministry of Culture and Sport, and by the Federal State of Lower Austria; has released several artist books. Her works are in public and private collections worldwide, mainly in Russia, Germany, France, Finland, and Austria.

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