Olesia Saienko
(1992) is a photographer and storyteller who lives and works between Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk. She was born in Lutsk, received her master's degree in psychology in Ostroh, and started working as a photojournalist and freelance photographer in 2017. Her debut exhibition took place in 2020 under the curatorship of Anna Potemkina - it was called Want to know a secret and was a detective investigation superimposed on reflections on growing up. The next staff member in the Assortment Room, "Verification of the Paranormal Phenomenon of Vampirism in the Dimension of Carpathian Mythmaking" curated by Anton Usanov in 2023, was already site-specific and explored the local mythology of the Frankivsk vampire, putting it on a par with propaganda myths. She is a member of the Ukrainian Women Photographers Organization and MYPH / Mykolaiv School of Young Photography. Her photos have been published in PHROOM, Reporters.media, F-Stop magazine, Kiosk of democracy, Liberation. She is engaged in documentary and conceptual photography and keeps a documentary photo diary. Her practice moves on the border between documentary and fiction with a critical focus on the phenomena of post-truth and propaganda. The artist takes on the role of an archivist and a trickster, often using irony but without crossing into the zone of sarcasm. By manipulating the viewer and deliberately confusing her artistic narratives, Olesia reflects on the interconnections between the themes of archive and memory.
The City of Guilty Pleasure (Banquet)
2023,
photography
The ability to enjoy things that do not cause feelings of guilt or shame in peacetime is a guilty pleasure of martial law. It’s a kind of joy that is shameful to admit to. At the same time, shame intensifies the pleasure. It’s inappropriate and can be condemned both by the public and you. We punish ourselves with a mixture of negative thoughts, anxiety, and fear in our stomachs caused by eating the forbidden fruit. More than a year ago, I took a panoramic photo with my phone. I wanted to capture a moment of bliss from a meal in a quiet company. Yet, peace and comfort make me angry. I feel like I have no right to experience this. I (and those at the same table with me) have no right to eat schnitzel while drinking beer. This relative normality looks surreal, strange, and distorted. Even for those on the home front, it highlights the contrasts of our times. The horizontal elongation of the images creates an allusion to the plot of The Last Supper. We live in a moment of tangible threat and proximity of death: we don’t know who will be hit by a missile tomorrow and who will go to war voluntarily or by the decision of other people. For some, this can literally be the last supper “before the crucifixion” in a state of “normalcy.” Of course, all of this may sound blasphemous, and here the circle closes – I am ashamed again.
Asortymentna kimnata
October 7–October 30
On The Periphery Of War
Curated by Alona Karavai, Roman Khimei, Yarema Malashchuk, Anton Usanov
