Chimera
Ksenia Bilyk
10 till 15 May 2023
Opening: Wednesday 10 May 2023 — 18:00 till 00:00 hrs

Part of the airWG Series

In the “Chimera” series, Ksenia Bilyk observes cultural matters that are used by Russian political propaganda.

In her works, she attempts to understand the scale of propaganda and how it motivates people to support the aggressive war effort.

The resentment that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union combined with history of the victory over fascism in World War II, turned this memory into a psychotic, almost religious cult with a desire for revanche.

On February 24, 2022, along with tank fire and rocket explosions, we witnessed the results of propаganda full of manipulative anti-Western rhetoric, which now serves as a facade for the destruction of the so-called “brotherly nation”.

Working in the context of war, Bilyk tries to capture the sick, ugly essence of the aggressor and highlight the prejudice that has poisoned the collectiven consciousness. She seeks to uncover the mechanics behind the twisted mirror that distorts reality beyond recognition.

Since Russian propaganda is based mainly on narratives of the past, most of Bilyk's works from this series have references to Soviet symbols. She intentionally uses symbols that have been distorted by propaganda, as they have lost their original cultural meaning and have become a mere tool for propaganda themselves. She distorts them into even more absurd, ironic, and helpless forms following the same myth-making manner.

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