is an artist, curator, cultural anthropologist and author. Her research focuses on issues of empathy, trauma and postmemory with specific reference to Crimea, from where she originates and has been displaced.
Cultural humanitarian aid risks diminishing the complexity of creative work to ethnic kitsch: well-meaning initiatives rate nationality over content. And when the work does receive critical attention, only art that portrays trauma cuts it. Soon thereafter, Western interest fades. Could answers for meaningfully decolonizing Ukraine lie with other formerly colonized communities?
Loss and detachment are lasting psychological issues for those displaced by war. When Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014, the region became inaccessible to those fleeing and other nationals already living elsewhere. Artists Lia Dostlieva, Andrii Dostliev explore how ruptures in collective memory can address trauma at distance.