To Watch the War – The Moving Image Amidst the Invasion of Ukraine (2014-2022)

To Watch the War is a moving image forum exploring the trajectories of experimental film and video that emerged during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The invasion began in 2014 in an attempt to suppress the popular Maidan uprising, and it intensified into an all-out war in 2022. Influenced by grassroots media strategies, the Maidan uprising led to a marked increase in the circulation of moving images, which in turn impacted experimental film production.

The exhibition at Coalmine – Raum für Fotografie, investigates the manifold responses, implications and complicities of the moving image in various forms of warfare: military operations, class war, cis- and heteronormative captivity, occupation of caring and reproductive labor, resourcing of the inhuman, and colonialist epistemological attacks. Central to the exhibition are visual guerrilla and critical approaches to capturing and watching war, with a number of works made in direct response to the current Russian invasion.

Conceived by Olexii Kuchanskyi and Oleksiy Radynski, and realized in collaboration with Annette Amberg.