Date & Location
2015
Dnipro, Ukraine
2015
Dnipro, Ukraine
Site-specific action-spreading of the sculptural object «pysanky» by members of the movement «Flowers of Democracy».
Kulikovska's solo exhibition titled «9th of May» was shown at the Art Represent Gallery in London in 2016. Within the exhibition were created many new «pysanky» — the vulva's plaster sculptures-molds — to the creation of which the activists, artists and volunteers were joined. On 1 May 2016, the plaster vulvas, painted in pink and body-color, were spreaded in London by the members of the «Flowers of Democracy» feminist movement. «Pysanky» threw down challenges to the established rules and prohibitions, revolutionary «decorated» the space of the city and its objects, among which the bronze sculpture «London Pride» by Frank Dobson around the National Theatre.
«Flowers of Democracy» is a long-term artistic and feminist movement that was began by Maria Kulikovska in the summer of 2015 and which is still continuing. Within this project several actions were organized, the main characters of which became «pysanky».
The first action of the long-term artistic and feminist movement «Flowers of Democracy» took place around the building of the cinema «Zhovten» in Kyiv, Ukraine, in the summer in 2014. It was that Maria Kulikovska and other members of the movement hung the plaster vulva's molds — «pysanky» — on the fence of the enclosed territory of the cinema building, partially destroyed by fire during the showing of the queer movie in 2014. The action of the «Flowers of Democracy» movement was not over, guards of the restoration works confiscated the pink «pysanky» of the «Flowers of Democracy» group without possibility of returning them.
«Flowers of Democracy» is an open discourse about a woman: her situation in times of war conflict, her social position in the political, economic and artistic hierarchies. «Flowers of Democracy» became the movement of women, who transmit the feminist massage, and the pink vulva as a recognition sign-symbol was and is to constant remind everyone that the tabulated female body must be free of borders of the oppression and prohibitions imposed by patriarchal system.
A complementary binding attribute of the «Flowers of Democracy» actions became the T-shirts with the vulva's print, handmade by Maria Kulikovska using silkscreen printing. The Ukrainian artist used one of these T-shirts in her solo performance «Happy Birthday» at Saatchi Gallery in London in 2015. The artist hung the black T-shirt over the green sculpture's head, which was furiously and impotently destroyed with a hammer during Kulikovska's performance. This gesture was a symbol of continuation of the «Flowers of Democracy» movement and at the same time was a sign of the performance's ending.
