Mykola Ridnyi: The Past, Present

The Battle Over Mazepa, by Mykola Ridnyi

Los Angeles Filmforum and Kyiv to LA present

Sunday September, 2024, 7:00pm

At 2220 Arts + Archives, 2220 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90057

In person: Mykola Ridnyi

NOTE THE EARLIER START TIME

Tickets: $15 general, $10 students/seniors, free for Filmforum members

At https://link.dice.fm/M9d38482dd3b

Filmforum partners with Kyiv to LA to welcome the Ukrainian artist Mykola Ridnyi. Ridnyi’s video work finds powerful and widely-varying approaches to explore the impact of wars in Ukraine, from the distant past, through the Soviet era, to the invasions of 2014 and today. Throughout, he makes clear how the past suffuses the landscape and people caught in war. From explorations of abandoned spaces (The District, 2023) to visions of youth dealing with the battles and dead-ends they face (No Regrets, 2016, and No! No! No!, 2017) to the remarkable poetry slam setting Lord Byron against Pushkin in dueling interpretations of the historical figure of Ivan Mazepa (The Battle Over Mazepa), Ridnyi’s films explore collective and personal histories and struggles with empathy and creativity.

A number of Ridnyi’s films and photography cycles are connected to his hometown of Kharkiv. The second largest city of Ukraine, Kharkiv is a scientific, cultural and logistical center that became particularly fragile in the context of the Russian war against Ukraine due to its proximity to the border. The body of work created over the past decade is a mix of stories, places and actions, shaping the narrative of people, city and country, and underlines the significance of historical context.

Mykola Ridnyi (born in Kharkiv, Ukraine) is an artist, filmmaker and curator. He lives and works in Berlin where he holds a guest professorship in the Lensbased class at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK). Ridnyi works across media ranging from early collective actions in public space, site-specific installations, photography, and short films. His works reflect social and political realities by drawing on the contrast between fragility and resilience of individual stories and collective histories. The body of his work created withing the last decade address the question of how to talk about violence and war but not multiply its brutality in the visual language. https://www.mykolaridnyi.com/

Kyiv to LA is a cross-cultural initiative inviting Ukrainian artists and researchers working with moving image to participate in a Los Angeles-based residency and public program. Kyiv to LA is a Marathon Screenings produced project, and is made possible by a generous grant from Nora McNeely Hurley and Manitou Fund.

Father's Story

2012, SD digital, color, sound, 3:30

For the short episode of Father's Story (2012) Ridnyi asked his father to make a video tour of the cellar beneath the rural house in which his family used to live. Ridnyi’s father describes the objects in the dark cellar such as jars with homemade vegetable preserves, glasses for moonshine and old Soviet newspapers.

The District

2023, 4K video, color, sound, 20 min.

Film written and directed by Mykola Ridnyi

Commissioned by Secession, Vienna

The District (2023) recites the artist’s memories of places of his childhood and youth that no longer exist. In 2022, a neighborhood of Northern Saltivka in Kharkiv became a frontline in the Russian invasion and suffered significant destruction. A walk through the “ghost district” forges a coexistence of past and present, outward and inward landscapes, facts and recollections.

No Regrets

Filmed and edited by Mykola Ridnyi

2011 / 2016, SD video, color, sound, 5:28

No Regrets (2011 / 2016) is based on footage of the suspension performance filmed in a night club. Performers are representatives of teenage community fascinated by hardcore music, tattoo and piercing. Youth radicalism is sublimed in bodily experience and overcoming pain thresholds, practiced as a protest against the routines of everyday life and social norms.

No! No! No!

2017, FHD video color, black & white, sound, 22 min.

Film written, directed, edited and produced by Mykola Ridnyi

The main heroes of NO! NO! NO! (2017) are young people from Kharkiv. Reaching their early twenties coincided with the breakout of the war in the neighboring regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. A queer activist and poet, a fashion model, a group of street artists, a creator of a computer games – all of them are artists or working in the creative industries, typical of peaceful life in a big city. However, the proximity to the war affects each of the characters and their activities.

The Battle Over Mazepa

2023, 4K video, color, sound, 20 min. Los Angeles Premiere!

Commissioned by Pushkin House, London and John Hansard Gallery, Southampton

The Battle Over Mazepa conceptualizes the historical significance and contemporary perception of Ivan Mazepa, a political and military leader of the Zaporizhian Sich and Left-bank Ukraine in the late-17th and early-18th century. Addressing codes of hip-hop culture, Ridnyi borrows the popular form of a rap battle to collide two great works of world literature associated with this historical figure: Mazeppa by Lord Byron in 1819 and Poltava by Alexander Pushkin in 1828–29. While Byron envisions Mazepa as a romantic hero, seized by love, Pushkin portrays him as a traitor in accordance with the colonial attitude of the Russian Empire. Highlighting the confrontation of these two texts, Ridnyi invited four rappers from different national and cultural backgrounds to write and perform their response to the poets’ lyrics. That resulted in the rap-battle composed in 6 rounds and additional video with performers’ interviews where they express a personal take on the projects context.