vostok 7
reenactment / radio-film / drawing
33:00 min single shot choreography (loop)
2020
SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin / Soshenko 33, Kyiv
Vostok 7 is a reenactment of the spaceship that has yet to be built.
Set in Kherson, Ukraine, the narrative of the radio-film is an artistic study of the Soviet space exploration programme – Vostok – which began with Yuri Gagarin’s first manned space flight, Vostok 1 in 1961, and ended with Vostok 6 in 1963 with the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova.
The semi-fictional narrative is introduced from the perspective of the radio frequency established during the first human encounter in orbit between the Vostok 5 and Vostok 6 spacecraft. Remembering its three previous lives on Satelite Island in Kherson, southern Ukraine, the frequency recalls witnessing the military invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and explores the complex relationships between dementia, sound, privatisation, music, intuition and child labour.
Suggesting radio, sound and listening as legitimate anti-fascist responses, the colonisation of space is taken into consideration to reflect and critique contemporary colonial forces through the lens of the military invasion of Ukraine in 2014.
The first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, is an anti-hero of the play, adding her voice to the rise of fascism in post-Soviet Russia by introducing radical constitutional changes: including the annulment of presidential terms, a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, and patriotic education in schools, among others.
In the light of intense collective and individual struggle, the piece listens into the politics of war, memory, the ethics of love and transmigration.
The point of departure for the video is a radio play accompanied by seven drawings rooted in artistic research at the Russian State Archive of Scientific-Technical Documentation in Moscow. Together with the illustrations, the radio play acts as a dynamic score for the performance of a single-shot video choreography that expands sculpturally on the drawings. The work unfolds in response to the rise of nationalist politics in (Eastern) Europe and addresses the core question of how to resist fascism through transdisciplinary art practice.
The work is developed as a contribution to the RAUPENIMMERSATTISM exhibition at SAVVY Contemporary. The exhibition confronts the endless consumption of our societies and the affluence many hold at the expense of others’ poverty, a collective exhibition is composed as a result of ten months of research, grapplings, and reasonings together. The show unfolds as a choral questioning to challenge structural inequalities and stand alongside positions of vulnerability.
Radiofilm credits:
Anna Sorokovaya – artist, Soshenko 33
Anton Kats – film directing, concept and narrative
Eugene Filatov – focus puller/1st AC
Jared Meier-Klodt – voice recording
Igor Kritskiy – light
Igor Pavlovic Pointet – VFX
ILYICH – sound, composition
Louis Becket – sound mixing and mastering
Maria Korovkina – project management
Marcus Bow Badow, color grading
Marcus Eich – VFX
Nikita Znak – 2nd AC
Shelley Pellegrin – voice
Simone Legner – voice fairy
Taras Kovach – artist, Soshenko 33
Viktor Ruban – choreography
Yarema Malashchuk – camera
Special thanks for the manifestation of the project – Minatha Condé
Funded by Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe:
