A powerful solo exhibition of one of the most internationally acclaimed Ukrainian artists Zhanna Kadyrova is currently on show at Galleria Continua in Paris. It offers a poignant take on the changing topography of her homeland.

The Parisian branch of Galleria Continua is currently showing the solo exhibition ‘Strategic locations’ by Ukrainian artist Zhanna Kadyrova (b. 1981), who has just been awarded with the ‘Her Art 2025’ prize at Art Paris fair and Marie Claire magazine, and the Shevchenko National Prize 2025. The exhibition focuses on the impact of the ongoing 11-year war on the topography of Ukraine. Kadyrova, who has created site-specific artworks throughout the country, decided to stay in Ukraine in 2022 and to continue her work on the ground. Thus, the exhibition title refers also to the actual field in which the works were conceived and realized. The artist's decision to remain in Ukraine, despite the constant bombardment, has obviously limited what was once Kadyrova's busy international schedule of exhibitions and trips.

The exhibition allows us to trace the topographical transformation of Ukraine and its dynamics during the war from the very beginning in 2014. At the entrance, we encounter ‘Home’ (2014–2023) an installation made from bricks, debris and wallpaper. A fragment of a destroyed wall, where fragments of bricks are mixed with crockery, evokes the consequences of massive attacks on Ukrainian cities. 

The other installation from 2014, created in the early stages of the armed conflict is her series ‘Behind the Fence’. Kadyrova found fragments of decaying metal fences on the Biryuchyy peninsula, which was not occupied at that time. Placed throughout the gallery space, these objects remind us that imposed borders can be put up anywhere – even in the heart of the Marais – and draw our attention to the fragility of freedom and sovereignty. The same fences reappear nine years later in her work ‘Souvenir’ (2023), a participatory installation. Shells that children usually bring back from their holidays by the sea become a peephole in a door which you look through to see a photographic slide of the fences. A symbol of the perpetual violence and new borders witnessed from one generation to the next feels devastating. Optically blurred, rusty iron bars are now, in a way, a shared memory. In order to see the image, the visitor must approach the shell attached to the wall and look through the lens. This need to focus and get closer to see the real image invites everyone to pay close attention to a surrounding reality - and political agenda.

All these objects together are a collective cry against the status quo. Houses should not be destroyed, beaches should not be littered with metal structures, and childhood memories should not consist of hostile constructions. Over the years, omnipresent violence has become an everyday routine that challenges our perception of normality. This feeling of unnaturalness, of things having gone awry, is extrapolated to nature and the monstrously damaging effect of war on it.

This brings us to Kadyrova's recent mixed-media project, ‘Resources’ (2024), which was conceived in the forest of the Carpathian Mountains in western Ukraine. This series consists of site-specific installations which are documented in photographs. At first, we see a pile of wood placed near or inside trucks or machines. Upon closer inspection, however, each log is covered by military camouflage instead of bark. These objects reflect both the wounds of the forest caused by the war and the invisible presence of fallen soldiers in the natural landscape. The series concludes with an installation which dominates the first floor of the exhibition, where camouflaged wooden logs lie around the room. The stillness of these objects in the sunlight seems to be surrounded by a terrible silence: a dead bang. 

The imperialistic aim to occupy ever more territories by force often leads to natural catastrophes that will have fatal consequences for decades. Unfortunately, sometimes it turns into something so terrible that it completely destroys the ecosystem and makes places unrecognizable. When the Kakhovka Dam was blown up in 2023 it caused irreparable damages to the cultural and archaeological sites across some two thousand square kilometres. In her ongoing project ‘Forest’ (2024) Zhanna Kadyrova has captured young saplings growing on the site of this ecological disaster.

Another series that threads throughout the show is ‘Shots’ (2010–2023) and ‘Maps’ (2023). Abstract works made from broken tiles, fixed with concrete on a wooden base appear at first glance to be minimalist pieces. They are, however, maps of various cities, covered in marks evocative of bullet holes. If the early pieces in these series are more about the urbanisation and the expansion of the cities, later they refer to the ongoing destruction of buildings and civic infrastructure in Ukrainian cities. Bird's-eye urban views went viral after numerous drone images of the Ukrainian cities before and during the war were published in the media.