Tutkimusartikkeli

Art as War Testimony and Survival Manual

Näyttelyn nimi, mikrofoneja ja pöydällä pulloja Open Groupin näyttelyssa Repeat After Me II.

Marta Czyż

Art as War Testimony and Survival Manual

MARTA CZYż, March 2025This essay explores the Ukrainian art collective Open Group’s powerful installation Repeat After Me II, previewed in the Polish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2024. The immersive video installation is a poignant reflection on war, memory, and displacement.

Repeat After Me II captures Ukrainian refugees recounting and imitating the sounds of weapons they remember. These sonic memories, shaped by trauma, are shared with the audience in a karaoke-like setting, inviting participation and empathy. The installation transforms individual memories into a collective portrait of survival, using portraiture not to stylize but to humanize. 

The Open Group—Yuriy Biley, Pavlo Kovach, and Anton Varga—has long worked at the intersection of personal and collective memory. In this work, they expand the geography of war trauma, showing how it migrates with displaced bodies. Repeat After Me II is not only a documentation of war’s psychological impact but also a participatory act of remembrance and resilience.

Open Group’s Repeat After Me II is on view at Serlachius from 12 April to 20 July 2025.

Lataa ja lue Marta Czyżin englanninkielinen artikkeli (pdf)