The exhibition Muted Explosions presents, for the first time in Catalonia, the work of Ukrainian artists and filmmakers Roman Khimei and Yarema Malashchuk. The exhibition showcases three recent film pieces: Explosions Near a Museum (2023), Dedicated To The Youth Of The World II (2019), and Dedicated To The Youth Of The World III (2023). These pieces are connected by the themes of absence and resilience, the coexistence of silence and noise, uncertainty and collective determination.
The dual projection of the films Dedicated To The Youth Of The World II and III immerses us in the unique chronological context of a progressively invaded Ukraine and, later, in a declared state of war. The second version of the film is a recreation of the first, produced with the same title in 2019. Dedicated To The Youth Of The World II documents the Cxema rave in Kyiv. The origins of Cxema are closely linked to the discontent that, following the Maidan uprising, has developed gradually over the past decade, leading to the current stage of war throughout the country. Although the piece was originally commissioned by the Cxema festival, its nine minutes transcend the notion of documenting a rave.
The film now stands as an iconic document of Ukraine’s artistic vitality while already under attack, but it is also a collective portrait of a damaged and surviving youth. The film was shot in the large pavilion of Kyiv's Dovzhenko Film Studios, which was transformed into a massive rave zone for the occasion. The camera closely followed participants in the dawn of a new day, a reality that many seemed reluctant to accept. A few seconds are enough to immortalize a stance, a gaze, encoding a certain timelessness in the gesture. The bodies of the models appear as they are: contemplative, exhausted, somewhat bewildered, slightly mystical, with faces sensually close to a degree of zero emotion. They emerge from an existential otherness, not from the party itself, but from a composition of time and place, bodily duration, and function of space, a specific technical conditioning that implies ways of becoming and modes of attention within it/them. Ravers leaving the factory.
Dedicated To The Youth Of The World III, in contrast, was created in a completely different context. The artists decided to recreate the rave in September 2023 under constant threat, focusing on members of the community who replaced previous rave participants after a prolonged pandemic and a large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Explosions Near the Museum (2023) documents the looting of the Kherson Local History Museum by Russian occupiers in October 2022. With over 173,000 items ranging from Scythian gold to WWII weaponry, the museum was strategically looted by Russian occupying forces two weeks before Kherson was liberated by Ukrainian forces. The sounds of bombings and rocket attacks were recorded during filming at the museum on December 12, less than two kilometers from the Russian-occupied territory. The empty display cases and pedestals reflect not only physical loss but also cultural amnesia. The footage shows a temporary numbness before the void of loss. However, to replace this numbness, a voiceover reads a detailed description of the stolen artifacts according to the museum catalog. The voice underscores either the hope that the museum's collection will soon be restored to its original state or the denial of the reality of the looting.
Since 2016, Kyiv-based artists and filmmakers Roman Khimei and Yarema Malashchuk have been exploring, through video, the role of the extra and imperialist mythologies, with award-winning works recently exhibited at institutions such as PinchukArtCentre, the Future Generation Art Prize and the Venice Biennale. They are members of the Prykarpattian Theatre, with which they have presented at the Venice Architecture Biennale and the Kiev Biennale.
Access the full Loop Festival program by registering for free here, and from November 11 to 24, 2024 you will have access to all of the festival's partner institutions, such as the Music Museum, the Picasso Museum, the CCCB, the Tàpies Museum and the MACBA, among others.
Exhibition in collaboration with Loop curated by einaidea.
