Zhanna Kadyrova. Avulsion

Zhanna Kadyrova. “Avulsion“*
5.12.2025 – 15.02.2026
Arsenal Gallery power station, 13 Elektryczna Street (entrance from Świętojańska Street)

Curator: Monika Szewczyk
Coordination: Yulia Kostereva

*Avulsion is most commonly associated with medicine, the detachment of a bone or soft tissue from its point of attachment, as well as the deliberate surgical removal of a body part. In geomorphology, the term refers to the natural process by which a river forms a new channel that bypasses previously existing meanders. It also appears in law and public administration, describing situations in which a state border shifts due to natural processes. We speak of industrial avulsion as well, when industry relocates to another region, separating itself from its original economic base. Metaphorically, avulsion can describe severing oneself from an environment, culture, or identity by rejecting traditions and social norms, or the abrupt breaking of social ties in the wake of a crisis. We usually have no influence over the natural processes unfolding around us, and only very limited control over those brought about by others. It is usually these forces that shape us and our lives. Everything changes.

Zhanna Kadyrova – Ukrainian artist born in 1981 in Brovary, Ukraine. Graduated from the sculpture department of the Taras Shevchenko State Art School in Kyiv. Works with sculpture, mosaics, photography, video, installation, and performance, exploring social, historical, and urban themes. Member of the R.E.P. group (Revolution Experimental Space). Lives and works in Kyiv.

Zhanna Kadyrova is the winner of the 2012 Kazimir Malevich Prize and the 2013 PinchukArtCentre Grand Prize. In 2025, she won the Taras Shevchenko National Prize in the field of visual arts for her project Flight Trajectories and became the first winner of the Her Art Prize for a series of photographs Refugees, which depict the interiors of public buildings ravaged by war. She has exhibited twice in the Ukrainian pavilion at the 55th and 56th Venice Biennale and participated in the main project of the 57th Venice Biennale. She will also represent Ukraine at the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026.

Kadyrova’s work was shown at the Arsenal Gallery in Białystok at the following exhibitions: „Places. Laureates of K. Malevich Award” in 2013; „Fear” in 2020; „Arsenal 60! On Collecting, Collection and the Love of Arsenal” in 2025. Her works are in private and public collections around the world. They are also part of the Collection II of the Arsenal Gallery in Białystok and regularly participate in exhibitions in Poland and abroad.
In her work, Kadyrova focuses on local contexts and interactions between people and their surroundings. From the beginning of the full-scale invasion, she has remained in Ukraine as she cannot imagine how she could talk about the war, which has been the central theme of her work since 2022, without being there.