An exhibition exploring escape, belonging and the possibility of living outside accepted social norms. The project considers withdrawal from society and the formation of alternative communities.
I participated as artist and curator.
I combined curating with participation, presenting a series of glitch artworks. Alongside it were photographs by GORSAD, Maia Iva, Anton Shebetko and indie_rage, an installation by Nazar Sheshuriak, and a short film and performance by Sasha Nikitina.
The exhibition took place at the Museum of Kyiv History during Kyiv Art Week. Its programme also featured an i-D documentary filmed at the СХЕМА rave and a presentation of ПІВНІЧ magazine.
I Am Not Here examines escape as a response to social expectations and the pressure to maintain a prescribed way of life. The escapist questions whether the norms presented as universal can really account for the variety of individual experience.
The exhibition considers different forms of withdrawal, from the guarded privacy of wealth to the search for like-minded people in virtual communities. Sharing a territory no longer necessarily means sharing a world, while distant connections can become more meaningful than physical proximity. Escape can signal privilege, exhaustion, refusal or the search for another form of belonging.
Within the Ukrainian context described by the original project, social maladaptation makes these questions particularly acute. The curatorial text approaches withdrawal through its contradictions: it may offer protection from an unbearable reality while also revealing the limits of a society’s capacity to accommodate difference.