PALIANYTSIA – Zhanna Kadyrova

Installation, video documentation
Cut natural stone
Dimensions: variable
Found River Stones, video projection

Palianytsia means bread. The classical meaning of the word is a large-sized round wheat bread, baked in the oven.
At the start of the war that Russia unleashed against Ukraine, the word Palianytsia became a symbol, since Russian occupiers are unable to pronounce it correctly. It became a shibboleth, distinguishing unequivocally friends from enemies. 

In addition to conventional troops, Russia sent groups of saboteurs to Ukrainian cities in advance of the invasion. The saboteurs' task was to spy and inform Russians where our armed forces were stationed, where checkpoints and infrastructure facilities are located. They also left identifying marks to help aviation and landing forces navigate and so on. These people moved around the cities in civilian clothes but were armed.

The project was inspired by the Transcartathian region where we now live with my co-author Denis Ruban. When the second week of the war started, our whole family was forced to leave our hometown, Kyiv. My mother, sister and aunt are now in Germany, yet we continue to live here and hope to return to Kyiv. The villages here are protected by the Carpathian Mountains and there are many mountain rivers; their waters run fast and polish the stones. There are no strategic sites such as airfields, military bases and weapons depots here, so we think we are safe. Even though sometimes there are air raid sirens. 

Upon arrival, we stopped at an overcrowded expensive hotel in the district centre. Trying to find our own place, we walked and travelled a lot around the area, and that was when we noticed the river stones. We started looking at them more closely and the idea just came to us. There was no time for distancing and analysis, there was a growing need to do something and be useful! A the moment, there are about 6.5 million internally displaced persons in western Ukraine, so finding a place, especially one with a workshop, was incredibly difficult.