Anastasia Lukomskaya

 
 

The video artwork has been conceptualized within the framework of the study "Voices of the Unseen: Art, Marginalization & Political Resistance in a Socioeconomic Context" commissioned by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) for KIT's Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS)

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​The video combines performance and poetic text, reflecting on the topic of freedom of speech and artistic expression. Under a dictatorship, an artist has two possible paths: to speak the truth and face great personal risk — or to become a propagandist and remain safe. I personally know poets who are in prison because of their poems, and poets who glorify war and travel to occupied Mariupol to perform. The moment an artist stops telling the truth, everything they do loses its meaning. Fortunately, art offers limitless ways to speak about anything metaphorically, without attracting the attention of the authorities. A person who knows how to wrap the truth in metaphor can remain free even in the most authoritarian state.