The exhibition “SILENT SEEING” by Chloé Sharrock and Alban Dejong has been opened

Opening of the exhibition by Chloé Sharrock and Alban Dejong at the Zaporizhzhia Center for Contemporary Art, curated by Gennady Kozub.

The works of the authors open space for reflection on how art can work with trauma without exploiting it, how it can be an instrument of attention rather than consumption. “SILENT SEEING” is an invitation to look more slowly, more deeply, more responsibly. It is an attempt to see war where it is not always noticeable, but always present — in pauses, in the breathing of the city, in ordinary life that continues despite everything.

The significance of this exhibition also lies in the very fact of its creation within the framework of the Zaporizhzhia BIRUCHIY art residency. A residency with a history that began on the Biriuchyi Peninsula, which is now under occupation. In the situation of war, work in the residency format acquires an additional dimension: it is an act of trust, openness, and solidarity. The presence of foreign artists in Zaporizhzhia — not as observers, but as participants in everyday life — breaks the distance between “center” and “periphery,” between “viewer” and “witness.” The residency becomes a platform for mutual listening, for sharing time together, for forming a more complex, less stereotypical optics regarding Ukraine in the European cultural space.