On 18 March, an event will take place at the European Parliament in Brussels dedicated to supporting Ukrainian culture during the war, alongside the presentation of the sculpture Origami Deer by Ukrainian artist Zhanna Kadyrova. The event is organised by a team from the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine in collaboration with artists and international partners.
The event forms part of the public programme of the Ukrainian Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale, entitled Ukrainian Pavilion: Zhanna Kadyrova’s ‘Origami Deer’ on the Way to Venice.
The programme includes a screening of the documentary film IDP, which documents the evacuation of the sculpture from Pokrovsk in 2024, as well as a panel discussion entitled Culture as National Security. Participants include Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for Humanitarian Policy and Minister of Culture, Tetyana Berezhna, artist Zhanna Kadyrova, EU cultural experts, and Members of the European Parliament.
The highlight of the event will be the public unveiling of the sculpture Origami Deer in the square outside the European Parliament building, where it will remain on display until 20:30 on the day.
Ukraine will be represented at the 61st Venice Biennale by Zhanna Kadyrova’s exhibition Security Guarantees. The pavilion is curated by art historian Kseniya Malykh and historian Leonid Marushchak. The project explores the theme of unfulfilled international security guarantees following Ukraine’s renunciation of nuclear weapons in the 1990s.
The sculpture Origami Deer, created in 2019 in Pokrovsk on the site of a dismantled Soviet nuclear-capable aircraft, has become the central symbol of the exhibition. In 2024, it was successfully evacuated due to the advancing front line.
During the Biennale, the sculpture is set to be displayed in a public space in Venice, whilst the Arsenale will host archival materials related to the Budapest Memorandum, along with video documentation of the object’s evacuation.
The Venice Biennale will open on 9 May and run until 22 November. As part of the Ukrainian Pavilion’s public programme, events have already taken place in Warsaw, Vienna, Prague and Berlin; following Brussels, the sculpture will also be presented in Paris.