Untitled. Srawberry Andreevna 2016

Curator: This is "Untitled. Strawberry Andreevna" by Alevtyna Kakhidze, created in 2016. It's a pen and ink drawing, mostly lines, simple and powerful at the same time. What are your first thoughts looking at it? Editor: It gives me a sense of detachment, like observing life from a very strange, removed angle. The clean, almost clinical lines make it feel very deliberate, not at all spontaneous. Curator: Detachment is a great word. It's like looking at a map, but a map of a dream or a memory. This work reminds me of those childhood drawings when you create worlds where the familiar suddenly shifts and gains new properties. The village of Zhdnivka features prominently. Editor: And those floating zones—it looks almost biopolitical to me, where spaces and identities are compartmentalized and separated by class and privilege and even death with its City of Zhdnivka cemetery suspended above. The cemetery oversees Zhdnivka village—literally! There's an evident spatial hierarchy at play. Curator: Absolutely. I am also reminded of the artist's concern regarding issues around home and displacement in Ukrainian contemporary experience after the annexation of Crimea. The drawing presents itself as a surreal commentary. There's humor here, though tinged with melancholy. Editor: Yes, humor as a survival mechanism in the face of displacement. I wonder about the Andreevna in the title—is that a personal connection, someone the artist knew, a resident of Zhdnivka? And what of the strawberry? There's so much left unsaid. Curator: It could be the strawberry from her family greenhouse; Kakhidze has referenced her family's gardening and botany efforts as metaphors for understanding belonging. Maybe it signifies the sweetness of home or perhaps, more acerbically, represents the fragility of such memories. What strikes you most about the materials, the line itself? Editor: The choice to render such charged concepts in delicate pen lines seems crucial. It highlights the precarity and the persistent fragility inherent to memories, home and identity when facing violence and dispossession. There’s an honesty to it. It feels unflinchingly sincere. Curator: Indeed, and for me, this "Strawberry Andreevna" lingers, both as a document and a testament, inviting ongoing reflections on what we mean by home and heritage. Editor: Yes, it provides a visual metaphor for social and political complexities using a simple yet deeply resonant visual language. It asks us to see beyond the surface, to connect the lines, to consider the implications of those imposed separations.