Oksana Pyzh

Future Fragments – "Visions from the Present"Oksana Pyzh

1. Juli – 31. Juli 2025, 17:00
ERSTE Stiftung, Wien

In light of the current global political situation, much of Europe is characterized by uncertainty and a latent sense of threat. One of the main causes of this insecurity is Russia’s large‑scale war of aggression against Ukraine, now in its fourth year. On top of that, tensions are rising in other world regions.

Opening: July 1, 2025, at 17:00 at the ERSTE Stiftung, Am Belvedere 1, 1100 Vienna.

Once assumed unshakeable political certainties of the past 80 years are increasingly being questioned. International alliances are breaking down, the concept of democracy is under strain, while autocratic systems and ideologies are gaining strength worldwide. Instead of international cooperation, a new isolationism is spreading.

Additionally, visions of an elitist social order promoted by some tech billionaires, combined with the rapid advancement in artificial intelligence, are fueling concern among many people. The development of AI is raising not only fundamental ethical questions but also threatening numerous jobs. In parallel, ever more extensive surveillance technologies are being developed, enabling the state to exert broad control over the individual—while at the same time making resistance to authoritarian tendencies more difficult.

However, this is countered by numerous civil‑society initiatives committed to democratic values, climate protection, and human rights, working toward a fairer society for future generations.

In the context of the exhibition Future Fragments – Visions from the Present, works by Ukrainian artists are presented to explore what remains of the future when the past and present are shaped by war and its consequences. The exhibition brings together artistic positions of Ukrainian creators living both in their home country and in exile.

Drawing on their own experiences with existential crises and the ongoing ambivalences of a fragmented present, the artists engage with possible future scenarios — navigating between hope and disillusionment, technology and trauma, ecology and reconstruction. The works transform our window gallery into a public portal into the mindscapes of a generation that has lost all certainties of previously peaceful coexistence. Dystopias stand alongside utopian visions; personal experiences feed into societal questions. Future Fragments gives these voices space — and opens new perspectives on what the future can mean.

Participating artists: Yehor Antsyhin, Daria Chernyshova, EtchingRoom1, Yana Kononova, Yevheniia Kriuk, Kateryna Lysovenko, Anna Manankina, Vera Mantiuk, Oksana Pyzh, Ola Yeriemieieva

The ERSTE Foundation condemns the war of aggression against Ukraine and the violence against its population. For three years, we have maintained special attention to the people in Ukraine and those who have fled to our country. We are committed to supporting Ukrainian cultural producers, offering training to representatives of social organizations from Ukraine in Vienna, promoting education in journalism, and working to build and strengthen democratic structures on site. With the resources we have, we aim to improve living conditions in this war‑affected country.

Office Ukraine. Support for Ukrainian Artists

Long‑time ERSTE Foundation partner tranzit.at, in collaboration with the BMWKMS / Federal Ministry for Housing, Art, Culture, Media and Sport (formerly BMKÖS), <rotor> in Graz, and the Künstler*innenhaus Büchsenhausen in Innsbruck, played a major role in realizing Office Ukraine.

The initiative was founded in early 2022, just days after the large‑scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, and supports Ukrainian artists and cultural workers who sought refuge in Austria across all disciplines. It connects them with cultural institutions and initiatives throughout Austria and helps them find exhibitions, performance opportunities, studio spaces, jobs, and internships.

The main goal of Office Ukraine, which has offices in Vienna, Graz, and Innsbruck and operates nationwide, is to enable Ukrainian creators to continue their artistic work in their respective fields and to foster long‑term collaboration between artists from Ukraine and the Austrian art scene.

The exhibition in the window gallery of the ERSTE Foundation on the Erste Campus runs from July 1 to July 31, 2025, and is accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Fotos made by Valerie Maltseva

PK Contemporary - „THRESHOLD“Oksana Pyzh

PK Contemporary cordially invites you to the exhibitionfeaturing the artists Oksana Pyzh, Marlon Red, and Bahar Batvand. The opening will take place on Saturday, May 17, 2025, at the gallery.

As part of the event, a reception and dinner will be offered. To complete the guest list, the gallery kindly asks for advance notification of attendance.

Address:
PK Contemporary
Hansaallee 159
Düsseldorf

Opening on May 17, 2025

Program:
7:00 PM Reception
7:15 PM Opening and welcome by Pia Kemper
7:30 PM Laudatory speech by Stephan Kaluza
8:00 PM Dinner

The exhibition "Steine räumen für den Frieden" - Frauen Museum BonnOksana Pyzh

The exhibition at the Women's Museum Bonn, on display until March 8, 2025, features works by over 40 female artists from crisis regions such as Kurdish regions, Syria, Turkey, Georgia, Afghanistan, and Ukraine.

With great artistic diversity, they tell stories of war, flight, and the power of new beginnings, offering moving insights into the challenges and hopes that shape their lives.

A special section of the exhibition is dedicated to historical aspects: artworks address the peace treaty between Nefertari and Puduhepa and the Sumerian priestess Enheduanna – symbols of the universal desire for peace and understanding that continue to inspire today.

The exhibition is complemented by a documentary section on the current situation in Ukraine, which impressively illuminates the global impact of conflict.

The exhibition invites visitors to engage in dialogue about peace, sustainability, and social change.

Exhibition: Memories of the FutureOksana Pyzh

Location: Schloss Schönhausen, Tschaikowskistraße 1, 13156 Berlin
Dates: May 18 – November 10, 2024

A total of seventeen contemporary international artists are featured, all grappling with the migratory flows that have shaped Germany in recent years—particularly the refugee movements prompted by the Russian-Ukrainian war. Memories of the Future is a visual compilation and study of artistic reflections, premonitions, and revelations, posing the central question: "What common future awaits us?"

According to the Federal Statistical Office, approximately 23.8 million people in Germany have a migration background, and roughly 1.5 million of these are Ukrainians who arrived in the wake of Russia’s invasion. In the two years since the first refugees arrived, many have managed to integrate into German society. This ongoing exchange has fostered mutual cultural enrichment: Ukrainian newcomers learn about German culture, while Ukrainian cultural heritage becomes more visible. The perception of Ukraine as a “terra incognita” in the global art system is gradually fading.

The exhibition foregrounds migration as a defining facet of recent German history. It invites a collective artistic reflection on tumultuous periods of social transformation, the quest for self-identification, and a re-evaluation of modern value systems.

Participating Artists:
Maryna Semenkova, Vitalii Shupliak, Yurii Koval, Aglaya Nogina, Artem Volokitin, Oleksii Zolotar, Osina Valeria, Igor Zaidel, Ae Hee Lee, Sojeong Park, Leyla Toprak, Sofiia Holubeva, Anton Laiko, Baharak Batvand, Oksana Pyzh, Philipp Boshart, Tetiana Malinovska

Curatorial Team:
Curator: Anna Petrova (SPSG)
Curatorial Support: Dr. Ulrike Schmiegelt‑Rietig (SPSG)
Curatorial Assistants: Björn Ahlhelm and Antje Lange (both SPSG)

The Exhibition "Hier aber dort" together with Olga Chekotovska in Atelier am Eck, DusseldorfOksana Pyzh

The exhibition brings together the two artists, who came to Germany at different times and with different motivations. In a dialogue between painting and photography, the Ukrainian artists process their experiences in the joint exhibition and create a shared narrative of people who were robbed of their homeland.

Exhibition: “Für das, was wir sind” in Stadtmuseum DusseldorfOksana Pyzh

The Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf, Berger Allee 2, presents the exhibition “Für das, was wir sind” by the two artists Bahar Batvand and Oksana Pyzh, running from 3 June to 30 July.

A shared fate brings these two artists together in this exhibition. Both come from countries where the struggle for freedom is far from a media slogan—it is a bitter reality: in Iran, a fight against a dehumanizing regime; in Ukraine, resistance to a state aggression.

With their work, Bahar Batvand and Oksana Pyzh attempt to give a face to the horrors of the present. No medium conveys experiences, content, and emotions more immediately than images. These are images that can bring the unspeakable closer.

Bahar Batvand, who witnessed the Gulf War as a child, repeatedly constructs domestic imprisonment through installations of boarded-up windows. Oksana Pyzh, in her pointillist painting, explores the societal structures of the former Soviet Union. And perhaps most importantly, both are women. Women in Iran fighting for their rights to self-determination. Women in Ukraine fearing for the lives of their children and parents. Women who are neither agents nor part of religiously fanatical dictatorships or aggressive regimes. Women who are victims in both conflicts—and yet refuse to remain victims and rise up.

The title of this joint exhibition thus reflects its ambition. It is not about dreamy visions of a beautiful, idyllic world—not about complex systemic overhauls, AI, or abstract theory—but about being a free human being.

Personal Exhibition "Post Soviet" in Pracownia Duży Pokój WarsawOksana Pyzh

Oksana Pyzh, through her exhibition “Post Soviet”, aims to highlight the ongoing process of how concepts like borders and national territories are losing their significance—especially since on a geopolitical level, these are still frequently violated.

The exhibition consists of graphic works depicting post‑Soviet landscapes. One of them is “Physical Map of the Collapse of the Soviet Union”, made from over fifty thousand dots. Each dot contains a letter, and together all the letters form the text of the Białowieża Agreement of 1991, which ratified the dissolution of the USSR into independent states.

Formally, the graphic resembles a physical map—but the dot-based system prevents it from being read like a conventional map: one cannot locate state borders, estimate scale, or identify specific places.

The text of the Białowieża Agreement used in the work has been deliberately distorted so that it cannot be read. Similarly, in reality, the agreement functions as a purely abstract construct. Had the declared provisions in the document remained unviolated, the war in Donbas would never have begun, and Crimea would not be occupied.

Another work points to the variability of geopolitical reality, which, while formally stabilized by numerous international agreements, is in practice constantly violated through acts of aggression. The artist, referencing her earlier works and their visual language, replaces the letters (which normally form the content of international treaties) with abstract graphic symbols—thus emphasizing the mere illusory impact these agreements actually have on reality.

Art Competition for young ukrainian artists MUHI 2015Oksana Pyzh

MUHi 2015 was the fourth edition of the independent competition for young Ukrainian artists (aged under 35), founded in 2009 by curator Marina Shcherbenko through Bottega Gallery and the Shcherbenko Art Centre

The project’s principal aim is to discover new names in Ukrainian contemporary art—artists who had not previously been shortlisted were not eligible to participate

Selection Process
From 350 applications, an international expert jury—specializing in contemporary art—selected a shortlist of 10 nominees

Finalists of MUHi 2015

The shortlisted artists included:

Bohdan Volynskyi (Kharkiv)

Daria Koltsova (Kyiv)

Dana Kosmina (Kyiv)

Oksana Pyzh (Kharkiv)

Anton Saienko (Kyiv)

Andrii Sakun (Kyiv)

Boris Slazhnev (Kyiv)

Art group “Supovoy Nabor” (Petro Vladimirov, Kyiv; Yevhen Korolitov, Dnipropetrovsk region)

Oma Shu (Kharkiv)