Mykola Ridnyi holds currently a guest professorship for multimedia art at the University of the Arts in Berlin. He graduated from Kharkiv National Academy of Design and Arts in 2008, where he studied sculpture. Ridnyi works across media, ranging from early collective actions in public space to the amalgam of site-specific installations. Photography and moving image constitute the current focus of his practice. In recent films and images, he has experimented with nonlinear montage, collaging documentary and fiction. His approach to reflecting social and political reality draws on the contrast between fragility and resilience in individual stories and collective histories.

A series of sculptures refers to the various shapes of government buildings, marketplaces, residential houses or transport facilities. All share one common detail – a flag. Initially this series of sculptures was dedicated to the symbolic role of a flag as an ideological marker of territory. In a time of war flags has an ambivalent meaning – ranging from a symbol of solidarity, national identification and security to occupation and direct danger. From military perspective objects under a flag are often potential targets.

In 2022, a neighborhood of Northern Saltivka in Kharkiv has become the frontier of the Russian invasion and has suffered significant destruction. A walk through the "ghost district" forging ahead of coexistence of past and present, outward and inward landscapes, facts and recollections. Voiceover recites the artist’s memories of places of his childhood and youth that no longer exist.

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Courtesy of the artist and Voloshyn Gallery.