Zoya Laktionova and Ziliä Qansurá

Zoya Laktionova
Unheritage

Not enough to be a fully-fledged archive, but also not destroyed enough to be completely forgotten. Unheritage is the project of an artist from Mariupol, a city that was conquered and destroyed by Russia during the Russian-Ukrainian war. Using family archives that she retrieved from her home before the war broke out in full force, but are so old that they have already been damaged by time, the director uses these damages as symbols of remembering and forgetting and makes them the central theme of her work.

Ziliä Qansurá
TOThEM and TABOOed

Is there a difference between totemic worship and social taboo or between primitive instincts and social restrictions? The artworks of Ziliä Qansurá focus on the dual nature of man and explore the contrast between instinctive worship and cultural restrictions. They aim to examine how the body can transform and expand by addressing issues such as objectification, marginalization and cultural resilience. Inspired by the Bashkort culture, where felt plays a crucial role in everyday traditions and rituals, the artist uses felt as the main material in her work.

* A European Artists Solidarity Program (ASoP) is a program that emerged from the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. It is intended to protect those artists whose creativity, existence, and often even whose lives are severely threatened by the political upheavals of our time. ASoP is financially supported by the Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs (BMEIA) of the Republic of Austria.