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Other contributors to the exhibition:

Website design and layout: Nastey Teor.
Editing the trailer, interviews (except for the conversation with Oksana Kazmina), preparation of all video and audio materials: Mykhailo Chelnokov.
Translation of the curatorial text into Ukrainian (Explication): Olesya Kamyshnikova.

Translation into English: Zhenya Perutska, Burshtyna Tereshchenko, Teta Tsybulnyk

Proofreading of the texts in Ukrainian and Russian: Natalia Lebedyntseva.

Financial Manager: Irina Berezneva.

Special thanks to Nelia Vakhovska, Sashko Protyah, Elena Syrbu, Svitlana Shymko, and to those who wished to remain anonymous.





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Underwater

A feature documentary directed by Oksana Kazmina.
With the participation of AntiGonna, Masha Pronina and Ksenia Platanova,
as well as Natalka Dyachenko (camera).
Producer: Yuliya Serdyukova (yutopia films).
Anticipated release date: 2023.

Logline

Stifled and kept secret for years, traumas from violent oppressions can drag you into impenetrable darkness. Underwater is a story about three unconventional Ukrainian women who are dealing with this darkness in their art – uncompromising and shocking but also vital and healing.

Underwater

A feature documentary directed by Oksana Kazmina.
With the participation of AntiGonna, Masha Pronina and Ksenia Platanova,
as well as Natalka Dyachenko (camera).
Producer: Yuliya Serdyukova (yutopia films).
Anticipated release date: 2023.

Logline

Stifled and kept secret for years, traumas from violent oppressions can drag you into impenetrable darkness. Underwater is a story about three unconventional Ukrainian women who are dealing with this darkness in their art – uncompromising and shocking but also vital and healing.

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Фото Наталки Дяченко
Andreeva Oksana, aka AntiGonna, ANTIGONSTAFF production

Queer artist, filmmaker, actress, and thrash model.

Born in 1986 in Vinnytsia, Ukraine. Resides and works in Kyiv.
The main themes in artistic practice are the study of fear, sex, and death categories in the public consciousness. Under the creative pseudonym AntiGonna (Antigon Staff), she implements her main project as a video art with performative components, enriched by elements of feature and documentary short films.

Aesthetics and the narrative of the depicted are paralleled to rituals, which are designed to curb the horror of life by converting it into a prop.

2020 nominee for the PinchukArtCentre Prize; 2021 personal exhibition Oksana
AntiGonna: 13, MSMO (Odessa, Ukraine); since 2017 she has become a co-founder of the art group OKCAHAS together with the director Oksana Kazmina; since 2016 she has started collaborating with photographer Andriy Boyko: Endless Story of Disease. Kyiv Porn Horrors, part 1. SBOYKA project.

filmfreeway instagram
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Natalka Dyachenko

Photographer and videographer.

Born in Korsun-Shevchenkivskyi, Cherkasy region. Lives and works in Kyiv. Studied at the Drahomanov National Pedagogical University, majoring in publishing and editing. She’s been practising photography for over eight years. Participated in projects Museum is Open for Renovation, (Un)promising Villages, and others. She’s been making videos for about 4 years. Participated in the filming of projects Underwater, The Secret, the Girl and the Boy (both directed by Oksana Kazmina).

instagram
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Photo by Natalka Dyachenko
Oksana Kazmina

Film director, artist.

Works from the standpoint of intersectional feminism and posthumanism. Co-founder (with Anatoliy Belov) of the interdisciplinary Body Practices project. Member of OKCAHAS (with AntiGonna) and Serviz Propav (with Vasyl Tkachenko). Member of Freefilmers, that promotes independent Ukrainian cinema, especially in eastern Ukraine. In 2016-2017, she taught the basics of film directing at Wesleyan University, USA. Since 2020 has been teaching the basics of working with video at KAMA. From September 2021 has been teaching and studying at the Department of Transmedia at Syracuse University, USA.

Since 2016, Oksana has been working on the documentary Underwater. This film depicts the daily life practices of four Ukrainian artists: AntiGonna (Kyiv–Vinnytsia–Odessa), Ksenia Platanova (Zaporizhzhya), Masha Pronina (Donetsk–Mariupol), as well as Oksana Kazmina (Novoyavorivsk–Kyiv–Syracuse).

The impetus to work on the Underwater film was another project by Oksana Kazmina, started in 2014: Backstage Stories. Daily Routine, Holiday Rituals and Other Physical Practices of Some Maladapted Groups of Ukrainian Women. An Incompetent and Arbitrary field Research, Kyiv, 2014–2020. This project was inspired by some events of 2014, as well as close cooperation and friendship with the artist Anatoly Belov.

In general, most of the projects initiated by Oksana are attempts at teamwork, co-creation and cooperation.

okazmina.xyz vimeo soundcloud ekibany.tilda.ws
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Valentyna Petrova

Artist, curator, queer anarcha-feminist.

Born in Prague in 1984. Lives and works in Kyiv. She received her art education at the Course of Contemporary Art by Kateryna Badianova and Lada Nakonechna (Kyiv), as well as at the Chto Delat project by The School of Engaged Art (St. Petersburg). She works with themes of labour, poverty, discursive violence, and institutional critique. She researches the performative method of working with the form of a work of art, focusing especially on the context, the political, and objectlessness.

Joint exhibitions: Armed and Dangerous, Kyiv–Kharkiv, Ukraine (2019); The Neighbors WARSAW UNDER CONSTRUCTION 10, Poland (2018); Kyiv Biennale, Ukraine (2017); Women’s texts, Transeuropa festival, Madrid (2017); Yeah, I remember!, Luda Gallery, St. Petersburg, Russia (2015).

Co-curator of exhibitions: Cave of the Golden Rose, Closer, Kyiv, Ukraine (2019); Saber, Deer, and Spinning-Wheel, Stanychno–Luhanskyi Regional History Museum, Ukraine (2018).
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Photo by Natalka Dyachenko
Ksenia Platanova

Mother, artist, hairdresser.

Born in Zaporizhia in 1974. Education: secondary school and Zaporizhia Vocational School (hairdressing).

"Since early childhood, I have required special dolls with distinctive personalities. Creating them, I was getting rid of my traumatic experience. Later it became my creative outlet: characters, objects, anthropomorphic masks and portraits created from various scraps. Paper, textiles, clay, plastic, food — mixed media and mixed feelings. Everything I do is a reaction to events that have happened or are happening. For me, it’s the most effective therapy.

I have no art degree and needed to get used to being called an artist, or even a sculptor. I gained a very important experience by communicating with visitors to exhibitions and creating objects together with volunteers and children.

I value an open conversation and consider collaborative work a special relationship."

Significant collaborative projects: 2018: Hands Under the Blanket, Session of Tenderness (Exposition, en partenariat avec la Queer Week, Paris). 2018: Zmist Residence, Mariupol. Solo exhibitions: 2017: Generating Principle, Platform TU, Mariupol, 2018: Game and Dreams, Educatorium, Kyiv, 2019: Inside a Box, Zaporizhzhia.

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Maria Pronina

Collage artist, vaginographer, queer Donbass Amazon.

Born in Donetsk in 1987. Graduated from the philological faculty of DonNU. In 2005, she started writing poetry. In 2005–2014, Maria organized and took part in many cultural events in Donetsk. She has published several poetry books and performed throughout Ukraine. In 2014, due to the war outbreak, she moved to Kyiv, and started to engage in fairytale therapy with displaced children. In 2015, she went to Mariupol to work on a UNICEF project to rehabilitate children affected by shelling of Vostochnyi district. She studied art therapy and started collaging practices. In 2017 and 2018, took part in
art residence in Mariupol (Platforma TU). Along with the Platform, she began to engage in actionism, to hold workshops and solo exhibitions. At the beginning of 2021, she started the project Os’ (Axis).

instagram
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Yulia Serdyukova

Producer, curator, queer activist.

Member of the collective of the Filma. Feminist Film Festival.

In 2019, founded the yutopia films company. Prior to that, she produced three full-length documentaries and a number of short films as an codependent producer in collaboration with other companies, including Freefilmers. Since 2016, has been working on a film Underwater, directed by Oksana Kazmina.

A graduate of Eurodoc 2021, Emerging Producers 2020, Berlinale Talents, and EWA’s Mentoring Scheme for emerging women producers in 2018. Graduated from National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in 2005 (master's degree in journalism, bachelor's degree in history and theory of culture). Member of the Documentary Association of Europe.