Zuzanna Czebatul

Kvertus Counter FPV Jamming Station

2024,
polylactic acid, sizes variable

Artist and activist Zuzanna Czebatul’s sculptural practice dissects and disrupts the transmission of aesthetic and architectural manifestations of authority and ideology across times and territories. Her long-standing activist practice, since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, characterized, amongst others, by collecting donations and finding means to deliver goods and medicine to the Ukrainian people, inevitably addressed the nature and circulation of military technologies and, in turn, informed her artistic renegotiations of the compositions of power structures. For Kyiv Perennial, Czebatul generously, and for the first time, agreed to merge her artistic and activist practices. For the exhibition, Czebatul conceived the sculptures Kvertus Counter FPV Jamming Station (2024), titled after a portable device that was of priority to her Ukrainian contacts at the moment of invitation and that she has privately acquired and sent after collecting donations. The Ukrainian manufacturer states that the device effectively disrupts frequency bands employed by commonly used invading FPV (First Person View) drones and other UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles). In December 2023, the counter-drone system was publicly presented at the EDEX 2023 exhibition in Cairo by the National Association of Ukrainian Defense Industries, only weeks after the Russian state company Rosoboronexport had promoted a nearly-equivalent device at the 2023 Dubai Airshow. At Between Bridges, Czebatul presents a series of 3D prints whose aesthetic and affective dimensions recall the eponymous military device, situated somewhere in the realm between replica and proxy, monument and specter.