Sudnozavod
SAVVY Contemporary, 2025
Exhibition by Anton Kats / ILYICH
Events: Soft Opening, Film Screening, Vinyl Lunch, Activation Anton Kats & Rike Frank in conversation, listening session
What is Sonic Antifascism? For ILYICH, something like an answer begins in Kherson’s vast ruined shipyard looming large in the shadows of history.
Situated in the delta of the Dnipro in southern Ukraine, the shipyard was once the largest in the USSR, giving birth to Vishwa Asha, meaning Universal Hope, a cargo ship built in 1974 during the Indo-Soviet partnership. Decades later, Vishwa Asha is decommissioned or lost, a ghost ship drifting through fractured narratives of war.
Sudnozavod (Ukr. “Shipyard”) is a new video work and music album by ILYICH that expands on the performance After Hope, which premiered at Sophiensæle in Berlin in April 2025. Both the album and the video have emerged from the process of creating this performance, which contained some of the compositions that are now released as vinyl. The exhibition at SAVVY Contemporary coincides with the digital and vinyl release of the album Sudnozavod.
An artistic fabulation grounded in lived experience, the album draws from the sounds of 1970s and 1990s Ukraine, embracing jazz fusion, spoken word, pop, field recordings, electronic music, and cinematic soundscapes.
The work responds to global fascization, specifically through the lens of Russia’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine, a fascist regime claiming to lead an “anti-fascist operation.” While grounded in the specificity of Ukraine, Sudnozavod listens outwardly, standing in solidarity with other struggles against militarism, authoritarianism, and colonial violence across the globe.
Recorded in the midst of multiple wars and genocides, from Palestine to Sudan, Congo, and beyond, Sudnozavod listens into crisis without ethical certainty. Instead, it asks: what is the response-ability of an artist in a time of rupture, and what kinds of listening might sustain hope, support resistance, and imagine existing otherwise? Amid these celebrations and interventions, Sudnozavod asks: What might Sonic Antifascism sound and look like?
The project is self-released on ILYICH’s independent label afterlife records and is supported by the Berlin Artistic Research Programme and Hauptstadtkulturfonds. The exhibition is part of the Artistic Research Festival, a public program realised across several days and partnering institutions by fellows of the Berlin Artistic Research Programme.
Related links:
Sudnozavod – Streaming Links
Berlin Artistic Research Programme
