Zhanna Kadyrova to make IHME Helsinki Commission 2025

IHME Helsinki Commission 2025 is to be made by award-winning Ukrainian artist Zhanna Kadyrova (b. 1981), who lives and works in Kyiv. Kadyrova’s site- and situation-specific works include sculpture, photography, video and performance. In IHME Helsinki Commission 2025, she focuses on water bodies and energy infrastructures, through which she explores the effects of “progress” and conflict on life-support systems.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Kadyrova fled to the Carpathian Mountains, but returned to her hometown of Kyiv a few months later. She regularly visits the war zones to see the destruction with her own eyes and to meet the people living there. In her IHME Helsinki Commission, Kadyrova will examine the consequences of Russia’s destruction of the Kahovka dam in the Zaporizhzhya region, and nature’s amazing regenerative ability. In Helsinki Kadyrova is interested in the history and present of Vanhankaupunginkoski rapids. Following nature values the city of Helsinki is now exploring the possibility of dismantling the dam that holds back Vanhankaupunginkoski rapids.

Kadyrova’s new commissioned work encourages us to reflect on our relationship with the environment from both an ecological and post-war material-reconstruction standpoint. At the same time, it creates a hopeful respite in a time of conflict and environmental crisis,

says Paula Toppila, Executive Director and Curator of IHME Helsinki.

During her stay in the Carpathians, Kadyrova created one of her most famous works PALIANYTSIA, which will be on display in the Finnish Museum of Technology on Kuninkaankartanonsaari island, Helsinki, from October 29 to November 3, 2024. This is a humanitarian work consisting of found river stones that resemble Ukrainian palianytsia bread. The “stony loaves” are for sale, with the entire proceeds going to causes of the artist’s choice in Ukraine.

IHME Helsinki is a contemporary art commissioning agency that promotes the cultural change needed in the environmental crisis and citizen’s ability to adapt to it. IHME Helsinki Commission 2025 will be shown in both Helsinki and Ukraine as a local production, for a local audience.