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Mariia Kulykivska

Visual Arts, De Montfort University

Thesis title:

A multidisciplinary art approach towards healing for the displaced, nomadic female artist.

This practice research PhD will produce an original approach to constructing art that enables the female migrant artist’s healing amidst overwhelming loss. It will build on my autobiographical experiences (Heddon 2007) as a twice displaced ‘nomad subject’ (Braidotti 2011) from war-torn Ukraine, and on fifteen years’ artistic exploration of gendered representation and border-crossing bodies through watercolours, sculptures of myself, and performances. Working through finite materials (eg. soap) and states of bodily precarity, my practice finds agency within вразливість (the Ukrainian term meaning fragility/vulnerability). 

Research Area

  • Applied Arts History, Theory and Practice
  • Visual Arts

Conferences

Kulikovska, Maria (2022) Invited Artist Keynote: Act(ions) of Solidarity: Possibilities of Hope and Change through Art, Borderlines IX: Seeking Solidarity and Wonder through Performance, De Montfort University, Leicester, 1st July.


Public Engagement & Impact

Selected Exhibitions and Events (2010-2024):


  • Double Q Contemporary Gallery, Hong Kong (2024): ‘Figure with Flowers/2’, ‘Bust with Flowers’, and watercolor series ‘Letters to Eva’ (participated in the group show ‘The Garden of Fragility’ with sculptures and watercolor drawings on old architectural papers evacuated from the war zone).

  • Nord Art Sculptural Festival, Büdelsdorf, Germany (2021; 2024): ‘Soap Figures with Holes After Shooting’, ‘Carpe Diem’ sculptural series (Public Choice Award winner in 2021). ‘Pregnant Figure’, ‘Figure with Flowers/1’(participated as a previous winner, presenting a new sculptural series at Europe’s largest sculptural festival).

  • The Immigrant Artist Biennial [TIAB] (2023–2024): ‘Migration Series’ (watercolors from 2020 to the present).

  • Jossingfjord Museum, Norway (2023): ‘My Body is a Battlefield. 2’ (solo retrospective exhibition curated by the Berlin-based independent curatorial group Office for Art).

  • HIAP (Helsinki International Artist Programme), Helsinki, Finland (2022–2023): ‘Letters to Eva’ (a series of watercolors on old architectural papers evacuated from Kyiv during the full-scale Russian war in Ukraine; presented during Open Studios of HIAP).

  • Resilience: Voices of Ukraine, Hong Kong (2023): ‘Migration Series’, ‘New Ceramics’, and ‘Green Figure’ in dialogue with works by Artem Volokitin (Ukrainian artists in exile evacuated from the war zone), curated by Eszter Csillag.

  • Accelerator Art Center, Stockholm, Sweden (2022–2023): ‘The President of Crimea’ (a sculptural installation featuring cast-iron casts of the artist’s body made as bells, accompanied by site-specific drawings and paintings; part of the group show ‘Mother Courage and Her Child’).

  • Moderna Galerija Ljubljana, Slovenia (2023): ‘Homo Bulla. Replica’ (sculptural installation of three soap casts of the artist’s body in the permanent collection of Art Collection Deutsche Telekom).

  • Albertina Modern, Vienna, Austria (2023): Watercolors from the ‘Migration Series’ (featured in the group show ‘Kontrapunkt’).

  • Weserburg Museum of Modern Art, Bremen, Germany (2023): Re-enactment of the performance ‘254’ on the stairs of the Bremen Government in a public space (part of the group show ‘What Is the Proper Way to Display a Flag?’).

  • Francisco Carolinum, Linz, Austria (2022): ‘My Body is a Battlefield’ (solo retrospective show curated by the Berlin-based independent curatorial group Office for Art).

  • Neue National Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2022): ‘254. Act of Solidarity’ (solo performance curated by Klaus Biesenbach during Berlin Gallery Weekend with the support of Office for Art; a re-enactment of the first protest action in 2014 on the stairs of the Hermitage during Manifesta 10).

  • Ludwig Museum, Budapest, Hungary (2019): ‘Carpe Diem’ sculptural series and documentation of the performance ‘Happy Birthday’ (featured in the group show of Ukrainian art ‘Permanent Revolution’).

  • Crimean Platform, Kyiv, Ukraine (2021): ‘Stardust’ (sculptural installation presented at the opening of the main governmental platform working toward the de-occupation of Crimea).

  • National Odesa Fine Arts Museum, Ukraine (2019): ‘My Body is My Business’ (solo show at the museum’s grotto, featuring ‘Figure with Flowers’, now part of the museum’s permanent collection).

  • Deutsche Telekom Art Collection, Bonn, Germany (2016): ‘Homo Bulla. Replica’ (three soap sculptures in the permanent collection of one of the largest Western art collections focused on Eastern and Southeastern European contemporary art).

  • Królikarnia National Museum of Sculpture, Warsaw, Poland (2016): ‘Homo Bulla. Replica’ (preview of works by Maria Kulikovska and Eva Kotatkova in the permanent collection of Art Collection Deutsche Telekom).

  • Saatchi Gallery, London, UK (2014; 2015): ‘Homo Bulla. Replica’ (three soap sculptures exhibited in the group show of UK/Rain Award nominees).

  • Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv, Ukraine (2011; 2019): ‘Stardust’ (sculptural installation featured in the historical exhibition marking the 5th anniversary of Crimea’s annexation).


Published artist-keynote speech:

Kulikovska, M., & Clarke, A. (2024). Act(ion)s of solidarity: possibilities of hope and change through art. Studies in Theatre and Performance, 44(1), 121–135. https://doi.org/10.1080/14682761.2024.2339048



Please see my website for further details: www.mariakulikovska.net




Other Research Interests

  • Contemporary Performance

  • Sculptural and Visual Arts

  • Feminist and Gendered Performance

  • Contemporary Sculpture siting the body within space

  • Architecture

  • Exile, Migration, Displacement and Art / Performance

  • Activism and Art / Performance

  • Bodies and borders

  • Queerness

  • Bodily precarity