In her exhibition ‘The Highest Point of an Empty Temple’, Polina Shcherbyna looks through disappointments, and horrors of the XXI century, refers to the cycle of tragedy and hope that repeats itself over the whole human history. She examines human weaknesses, the conflict between good and evil and the paradox of human existence – such as how people sacrifice freedom and rights in their fight for freedom and rights.
The central theme of the exhibition is victim, through the sacred images reflecting on historical events such as the siege of Kyiv 1240, the Second World War and the Russian-Ukrainian war.
In her artworks, Shcherbyna into the dialogue with philosophical ideas of Giorgio Agamben and Hannah Arendt as well as to Andrei Tarkovsky’s film ‘Andrey Rublev’ etc.
From an aesthetic and sense point of view, the exhibition is reminiscent of a temple, but with sacred images as artifacts of pain in the modern world through the prism of suffering Christian images such as crucifixion.
The exhibition will include paintings, on unprimed linen fabric with special author palette of dark pigments, carved/burned -paintings that growing into monumental installations, all works made during the 2023−25 years
The artworks explores the conflict between victim and power , as well as the search for new spirituality and sensitivity to the pain of this world in a time characterized by wars and spiritual poverty, in several episodes as a long−form narrative of different scenes of the sacrifice and hope.
It also raises the question of whether rebirth is possible in a place of emptiness ?”
author’s poetry text
THE HIGHEST POINT IN THE EMPTY TEMPLE
We left the soft and warm womb of the mother where it was so safe to be alone with ourselves and not even crowded, for humans didn’t know the
possibilities of the world, didn’t know about ownership, about fighting. There may be too much temptation for humans on Earth. But if only there were a womb big enough to hold all humans, animals, and maybe even birds, fish, trees, and fields. It could serve as a shelter for all who are tired of warring.
How can humans be saved from humankind? The safest place on Earth is an invented place without any address, without some point on the map. It is in the mind; thought is eternal. It lives even when everything around it is already dead.
How do we believe in goodness when the world wants to destroy itself so badly?
How can you know everything about the 55 armed conflicts that are going on nowadays only if you are not one of the inhabitants of the warring country? Humankind has again set a new record since the Second World War.
But nobody knows the counting system to determine how many armed conflicts the Second World War contained within itself. And it is not necessary
because nobody can count the number of deaths and milliliters of spilt blood accurately, even today…
We came from the void, and into the void we will go. So why is humanity so eager to leave before the time appointed by nature? I am a human that stands on the land delimited many times, undivided, once scorched, then fertile again, loose and trampled. My Earth knows nothing about me. Even if you look at me, or even at you, from a three−hundred−meter heavenly body that will soon fly very close to our planet, we will not be visible.
But we will undoubtedly perceive this heavenly body; doesn’t that mean the Earth doesn’t belong to us? We are all temporary guests of a dark nothingness.
And this disease, which strikes to the marrow of the bones – war – has always been there, and lucky is the one who has managed to live his life without
getting sick.There may be no peace as such, and only a short pause interrupts one endless war.
Episode I. Aschenglorie. the peace of emptiness
The room with folding beds speaks of an apocalyptic void, it is a proposal to imagine one of the possible developments of the future for Humanity.
A place of emptiness where the trace of a person can be seen only by the remains.
In this room, the viewer is invited to sit on the floor between the beds and contemplate the place of emptiness, becoming a part of it. Imagine that everything around has disappeared, except for yourself there is nothing left, this world has reached its apogee, having gained complete control, has lost everything. It is about political oppression that destroyed everything around, but this room and the landscape outside the window have stood and we can contemplate this red light of a new world.
Episode II. When an angel falls, it leaves a message.
A letter from the past to the future that will never be received by the recipient. With a reflection on The Tale of Bygone Years and the alphabet on the walls of St. Sophia of Kyiv.
Sacred texts in the form of messages in Old Slavonic Ukrainian on the left and Old Latin on the right, as well as in the language of sacred painting in the central part.
It is a search for roots and determination of the origin and history of languages and the spirituality inherent in them.
The work is a letter from the past in two languages of the past, with a utopian and existential goal to warn the future and prevent new victims.
On the left part, the message begins with the words “It is a great price for victims to fall prey to deception.” The sentence was written using the alphabet from the inscriptions left on the walls of St. Sophia of Kyiv, in Old Slavonic Ukrainian.
On the right side of the cross, the text continues in old Latin, “Give love a chance on earth to overcome death.”
Sound installation (whispering)
When an angel falls, he leaves a message
The intercostal, deep wound that feeds the thirsty, gives life and contains death, measures the quality of pain, comparing female and male pain, which wound hurts more? Whose body will never be resurrected?
Can the one who killed be a victim?
Can the one who heals be an enemy?
Can the one who betrayed be a hero?
Can the one who begs be free?
Can the one who ignores be a benefactor?
Can a body be owned by someone who does not belong to it?
Can there be a mind not subject to the body?
Can there be truth in collusion with injustice?
Can independence be dependent?
Can a wound be a nurse?
Episode III. Look into the Open Sore
The dialogue with the biblical plot “The Incredulity of Saint Thomas” is formed on understanding the modern picture of the world through the image of suffering and faith. It is a distorted mirror of modernity, where higher powers test us, prove whether our wounds are real. Do we really feel pain?
Are we real human if this horror happening in the world?
A deep wound from the wars on the united body of the world. This body in which a human merges with a tree, I think about a tree as one of the creations that can exist on earth much longer than a human, it is a fantasy about some utopian picture of the world, here each human builds his life according to the age of the tree, by two hundred and more years ahead. Is it an attempt to imagine what our future might be like? And how exactly could the world change if our perception of ourselves in it changed?
Episode IV Stele of the empty temple
“Stele misericordia”
The structure, which in its essence and form borders between a cross and a memorial, speaks to the mercy of man to man and also to non-human nature, which appears as an innocent victim of war.
The monument is filled with a special feeling of sadness and compassion for the sacrifice of man in the circumstances of the modern world, for all those whose body or mind no longer belongs to them, looking at the problems of the contemporary context.
The body of the young man is held by women’s hands, his chest mirrors the deep wound that is in the heart of everyone who has not stopped feeling, everyone who has been touched by pain or is trying to understand the nature of their being through compassion for another.
This work also reveals the theme of the incommensurability of the nature of pain between women and men, in any time, including the present, as illustrated by the plot of “Pietà” (Lamentations of Christ), when a mother’s hands hold her dead son.
The invisible wound is the most painful, Its boundaries are not easy to detect, Its outlines and depth are unknown to us, we can only start from the original wound inflicted by the spear of a Roman soldier on Jesus during the crucifixion. How many similar wounds does a young body feel, as it is distributed like meat to the necessary battalion, becoming a victim and then a hero, but not always. A voluntary and forced form of slavery is the form that democracy wears today in war and beyond.
But in an attempt to restore hope to the crippled body of society, I depict this healing literally, as if something is healing, something life-giving is sprouting from the flesh, thereby curing it. This is a kind of provocation, a pushing of reality to the transformations I depict, in the hope that one day everything that hurts and does not hurt will also be able to heal.
In the middle of the Stela is a rounded board, the image of which we see when we approach it closely and find ourselves directly under it, raising our eyes above our heads, as if under a dome or a veil. Its visual part is a bas-relief image burned on the board, which is actually an enlarged copy of an ultrasound image of the womb.
In this part, the main question is whether there is a safe place for a human being on earth.
I try to imagine this phantom shelter from the horrors of the present, how inside it the deepest wounds are healed, ruins are rebuilt, new trees grow, and scorched steppes are revived. I imagine not memories being revived, but people who left too soon, and now will be able to live out their lives.
I try to imagine this utopian refuge, and instead there is only emptiness, but emptiness is also the presence of something.
In the crowning image of the painting, an important conflict is birth while contemplating death, which is the highest point of the stele, where the mother’s hand holds the leg of her son, which refers to the Madonna and Child, it seems that resurrection for a person is about overcoming time, when you can rewind memories to the moment that was filled with the greatest happiness, perhaps this will also provoke reality.
Sound installation/prayer (in german language )
Liebe bis zum Blut
Du bist nicht der Vater von Ikonen, der wie ein Henker auf Urteil und Schafott blickt.
Du bist Mutter. Zerzaust, mit zerrissener Kehle, die ein mattes Gebet krächzt, ein fluchendes.
Aus Deinem Innern, wo das Kreuz ein Loch bohrte, wie ein Weg zur Hölle oder direkt in den Himmel,
wird die Kirche geboren – eine Brut von Krüppeln, Bastarden, die sich an Dich klammern, blind, stumm, wie Fische.
Du nährst sie nicht mit Manna – mit Deinem Blut, heiß wie Lava vom Vesuv,
das Sünde und Müdigkeit und Gleichgültigkeit ausbrennt, nur Leere lassend für Deine Wut.
Dein Brot – ein Stein, den Satten ins Gesicht geschleudert, ward Fleisch für hungrige Bestien,
Dein Wein – Galle und Essig, der den Durst derer stillt, die nicht mehr an Himmel oder Hölle glauben.
Deine Umarmung – nicht Samt und Seide, sondern Stacheldraht, der die Rippen quetscht,
um zusammenzuhalten, was die Welt in Fetzen riss, in blutigen, formlosen Brei.
Du sammelst sie – Huren von unter den Brücken, Süchtige aus Spelunken, Mörder, die nachts weinen, geschlagene Hunde ohne Stammbaum,
und jedem gibst Du nicht süße Vergebung – sondern eine Klinge, um Fesseln zu zerschneiden, den eigenen Stolz, die eigene Erschöpfung.
Du lehrst sie, diese Welt nicht zu lieben – sondern ihr an die Gurgel zu gehen, wenn sie lügt und stiehlt,
und nicht die Sonne zu sehen – sondern den Widerschein des Feuers in den Augen derer, die Dir ins Nichts folgen.
Aus jener Wunde, die niemals heilt, wo das schwarze Blut der Zeitalter pulsiert,
strömt nicht Ruhe – sondern Raserei, heilige Raserei des Kampfes, die Tote aus Gräbern hebt.
Deine Liebe – keine Kerze im Tempel, kein leises Lied zum Trost schwacher Seelen.
Sie ist die Explosion einer Granate in der Friedhofsruhe, ein Sturm, der Masten morscher Schiffe bricht.
Dies ist Mutterschaft der Verzweiflung, die zur Stärke wurde, Mutterschaft des Schmerzes, die zur Waffe wurde,
für jene, die nichts mehr zu verlieren haben, außer diesem Wahnsinn – trotzdem zu leben, bis aufs Blut zu lieben.
