Members’ Preview: The Ground Shifts Beneath Our Feet | Zhanna Kadyrova

In The Ground Shifts Beneath Our Feet, Kadyrova explores displacement, resistance, and regeneration through the transformation of Ukraine’s physical landscape. Across five bodies of work created following Russia’s full-scale invasion, she considers how land itself responds to the threat of erasure with renewal.

Working across sculpture, embroidery, photography, and film, Kadyrova examines the earth as a site of violence, memory, and resilience. From the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam and its reservoir ecosystem to the mining of agricultural land, these works attest to the persistence of everyday life under extraordinary pressure.

Three ongoing series—Palianytsia, Russian Rocket, and Embroidery (2022–)—continue to expand in response to the ongoing war. Palianytsia takes its name from the Ukrainian bread that became a marker of identity under occupation. Russian Rocket superimposes missile imagery onto landscapes encountered by the artist. Embroidery consists of woven portraits that contrast domestic calm with the constant presence of air alarms.

The large-scale video installation The Forest (2023–2025) examines the aftermath of the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam in June 2023 and the unexpected regrowth emerging from the exposed reservoir bed. Created in collaboration with the Dovzhenko Centre in Kyiv, the City of Zaporizhzhia, and the Khortytsia Museum, the work also involves participants from the region.

The film IDP (2026) follows the evacuation of Origami Deer, a monumental sculpture removed from Pokrovsk in 2024 as the front line approached. The work traces its journey from a park where it stood on the base of a decommissioned Soviet bomber through Warsaw, Prague, Vienna, Brussels, and Paris, to the Venice Biennale, where it anchors the Ukrainian Pavilion’s Security Guarantees exhibition. Origami Deer has become a symbol of hope and survival.

Kadyrova lives and works in Kyiv. She is the recipient of the 2012 Kazimir Malevich Prize, the 2013 PinchukArtCentre Grand Prize, and the 2025 Taras Shevchenko National Prize in Visual Arts. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Centre Pompidou, Palais de Tokyo, Castello di Rivoli, Ludwig Museum Budapest, and Kunstverein Hannover.