Shaped By War: 'Stone Bread' From Ukraine

Ukrainian artist Zhanna Kadyrova was forced to leave Kiev two weeks after the Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022. She fled the capital city along with her mother, sister and pets and spent the initial days of occupation in the Transcarpathian region. It was in the riverbeds crisscrossing tiny villages nestled by the Carpathian mountain range that she noticed rounded stones. 바카라�To me, they looked like Palianytsia,바카라� she says. Palianytsia is a type of traditional welcome bread common in Ukrainian households.

Those river stones have travelled from Ukraine to Kochi in Kerala in the form of an artwork titled 바카라�Palianytsia바카라� and are on display at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale.

The theme for this year바카라�s Biennale바카라�In Our Veins Flow Ink and Fire바카라�is, in the words of show curator Shubigi Rao, a 바카라�bulwark against despair바카라�. War leads to hunger. Through her artwork, Kadyrova helps us visualise the situation in war-torn Ukraine. The humble bread is a medium through which this story is told. 바카라�Ukrainians are known for their hospitality and this type of bread is used as a welcome snack. But this bread is made of stones because the Russian occupiers are not welcome,바카라� says Kadyrova.

Bread is perhaps the most political food known to the history of humankind. In the Book of Exodus, bread became the 바카라�gift of god바카라�, the manna from heaven that Moses procured to save masses of starving Israelites. In The Last Supper, bread became the divine 바카라�body of Christ바카라�, his flesh and blood, consumed by Christians to cleanse them of sins. In 18th-century France, the shortage of bread became the focal point of a proletarian uprising against the church and the monarchy. Bread has once again become the symbol of identity and resistance바카라�this time in Ukraine.

When the war broke out, Palianytsia became a password for the locals to distinguish friends from foes. 바카라�You see, Russians can바카라�t pronounce Palianytsia correctly,바카라� says Kadyrova.

It traverses the delicate line that separates 바카라�food as a necessity바카라� from 바카라�food as luxury바카라�. With Palianytsia, Kadyrova juxtaposes the tangible tactility of hardness with the intangible effervescence of everyday emotions. The welcome bread made of stones becomes a metaphor for many things바카라�Ukraine바카라�s territorial and cultural resistance against the Russian-Soviet hegemony, the invariable hunger and death that ensues any war and the bare simplicity of violence. The softness of the bread is revealed to the tongue only after the eyes pierce through the hardness of the stone.

In 1945, Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali, who liberally used bread as a motif in his paintings created 바카라�Basket of Bread바카라�Rather Death than Shame바카라�. Depicting a heel of a loaf of bread in a basket at the edge of a table in a background of sheer darkness, the deceptively straightforward portrait had layers of political messaging. It symbolised a post-war world at the precipice of total decline, a world of atomic bombs threatening the very soul of civilisation, the 바카라�moral hunger바카라� of Germans and a commentary on the fall of Adolf Hitler.

Palianytsia adopts a similar approach to the visual grammar of war metaphors. Like Kadyrova바카라�s inedible bread, Ukrainians have adapted to the endlessness of war with the hardness of stone. And like Palianytsia, it is deceptive. 바카라�Putin underestimated the Ukrainian resistance. But we are tougher than we appear,바카라� she laughs.

In the days that preceded and followed the invasion, many in Ukraine could not sleep for days. And yet, they continued to dream바카라�of  peace and survival, of victory, of nostalgia, of loved ones, of dapper dinner parties.

On the night before the invasion, Kadyrova dreamt she was on fire. The left side of her body had suddenly burst into flames and she was trying to roll on a patch of grass to douse them. Suddenly, the scene changed and she and her friends바카라�who had been gathered at her home just a few hours ago for a dinner party바카라�were hiding under a table. 바카라�Hiding from what?바카라� Kadyrova recalls thinking in her sleep. At 5 am, she woke up to the sound of rockets. Soon, she was exiled from home.

Recounting the challenge of creating art in war time, Kadyrova says: 바카라�It was a horrible time. There was complete chaos, especially in the Eastern and Southern Ukraine where Russia was attacking. To me, Palianytsia is a memoir of that horrible time set in stone. But it is also optimistic. There is hope in resistance.바카라�

As per estimates by the United Nations, over 8,000 civilians have been killed since the war started and at least 6.5 million Ukrainians have been internally displaced. According to the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration, 18.8 million Ukrainians had left the war-stricken nation. Ten million have now returned home.

Kadyrova is back in Kiev to support her friends and fellow Ukrainians as the nation completes one year of the war. After a year of fighting, communities living in the violence-hit parts of the country are struggling to rebuild their cities and towns. Not much of Kiev, the town where she grew up in, remains the same. Buildings have been bombed to obsolescence, schools and hospitals destroyed, and power plants ravaged, leaving thousands freezing, bringing back memories of the intense winter of World War II.

For the past year, Kadyrova, like many other Ukrainian artists, has cancelled all projects that are not related to the socio-political situation in Ukraine and is only focused on resistance. She has managed to raise nearly €200k in the past year for the Ukrainian armed forces and others involved in the front lines through global shows of Palianytsia and her other works.

(This appeared in the print edition as "바카라�STONE BREAD바카라� and Resistance")