Will, death and ???
Tatiana Pavlyuk
The installation consists of three doors in the urban space. One door is marked with the sign "Will", the other with "Death", on the third "???". In this way, the artist outlines the need for an alternative idea. Every passer-by can open the door, scan QR-code or read the text behind the door. The text explains each of the signs. The code redirects to the online feedback form.
In the context of the COUNTER-myth idea, the author works with the statement "Will or death".
Turning to primary sources, one can see that this slogan was used by anarchists leaded by Nestor Makhno. Also, "Victory or death" was the slogan of the Cossacks during the period of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Hetmanate. Subsequently, it was used during the national uprisings.
Today, these words and their variations are used by the military ("Ukraine or death" is the motto of the 72nd mechanized brigade named after the Black Zaporozhets).
Artist believes that this slogan reflects more meanings than the worldview of specific communities that use it. She sees it as a paradigm for the existence of Ukrainians as a nation.
Looking closely at the history of Ukraine, you can see that every hundred years Ukrainians take up arms to defend their subjectivity and their right to live as they see fit. This leads to that:
a) in peacetime, Ukrainians do not have time to reorient themselves from war to sustainable development;
b) Ukrainians have no idea how to live outside the conditions of crisis and struggle, even our recent history has several crises and revolutions.
From the scale of the state, this phenomenon spreads to the scale of personal development of people. Many people do not know how to live when everything is good, but they know well what to do when everything flies into the abyss. Thus, when everything is going well, they create crisis situations and obstacles in their lives unconsciously in order to overcome difficulties again and feel at ease.
The binary opposition of “Will or Death” offers us two key concepts.
Will is the intention to exist in a certain way and the willingness to overcome obstacles in order to realize our vision.
Death is the rejection of alternatives: I will live the way I want, or I will not live at all.
Such worldview is organic for wartime, but wars end, and it remains with us in the collective unconscious. The idea of a nation is built around dealing with external circumstances, but we as a society pay very little attention to improving these circumstances.
The artist has no doubts that the war with russia will end with the victory of Ukraine and the ideas of democracy. However, she says that we need a new paradigm in which we do not have to prove our subjectivity to others, where it is a fact and we act based on it.
Today, the alternative to will or death is oblivion. You can leave Ukraine not only physically, but also intellectually, to direct your time and attention to developing and living well in the context of another culture. Refusing to exist in the Ukrainian context, people choose sustainable development for themselves. The author believes that this is a rational and good decision if you have no alternatives.However, this is not beneficial for our country because the outflow of intellectuals leads to negative selection that is not the best candidates take the leadership positions. Artist wants to emphasize the need to create conditions for the development of people who decide to stay in Ukraine.
She says: “Besides struggle and death, we need something else”.
Materials: Entrance doors, vinyl board, digital printing,.
Video of observing people interacting with the installation.
