Vitalii Shupliak

The project < Focus Ukrainian Artists > is hosted on the HEK Blog. Its mission is to promote and support the works of Ukrainian artists. It provides a platform for artists during the war in Ukraine, inviting them to share their testimonies and reflections on the current social and cultural repercussions through the use of digital media. The difficulties in which many of these artists currently find themselves – whether that is because they have to leave the country, are engaged on humanitarian fronts or because Ukrainian institutions can no longer continue their activities – prompt the support of other cultural institutions. Through their work and by retaining their independent agency, artists contribute to a civic discourse using their artistic practices. It is just as important that this content then reaches a wider audience. In line with the mission of HEK, works of art that make creative use of digital media are selected. Artists receive a loan fee for the presentation of their works. Participating artists are invited to share their statements on the blog, should they choose to do so.

Vitalii Shupliak, Respiration (soap bubbles), 2017, Video installation «inSPIRACJE 12», TRAFO, Szczecin, PL, Photo: Vitalii Shupliak

Artist Statement:
By asking the questions, we don’t automatically receive an answer, because the receiver’s address is constantly changing. Everything is spinning. The question remains: around what? The body and mind move simultaneously but in different directions. Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? Even though we’re pushing forward at a high speed, we still don’t know the answers to these primary questions. We’re constantly running away, sprinting so fast that we stamp our own feet – imprisoned in an endless loop. Wishing for stability, we only find it in a constant mobility. Staring at the hypnotic vortex or the magnetizing dance, we unconsciously become a part of it. Never-ending turbulence as a norm. Circular motion – actual movement or ultimate stillness? Explosions of light on a smartphone’s screen, endless informational fireworks, photos with a flash illuminating our way. Wandering gaze; safe journey on the surface of the screen. The sphericity stimulates rotation and the needle of the compass is spinning restlessly.

Candles 360, 2017 
MP4 (.mp4)
1280 x 720
02’05”
25fps

Can a candle burn upside down? If everything is rotating including the earth, and the history of the wheels is rolling, then the specter of even the most terrible fires continuously does not go out.

Live View, 2018
MP4 (.mp4)
1920 x 1080
01’24”
25fps

Viewing mediated through the device screen, desynchronization of reality, rotational and uncontrolled observation.

Sunset, 2019
MP4 (.mp4)
1920 x 1080
02’21”
25fps

Can we also admire the artificial suns, and romantically staring away? The fear of burning your finger with a fingerprint reader remains. A target sight for shooting or a labyrinth? There are many questions when you are left alone in an empty room after sunset.

Respiration (soap bubbles), 2017
Video installation «inSPIRACJE 12», TRAFO, Szczecin, PL, Photo: Vitalii Shupliak

Vitalii Shupliak // Віталій Шупляк (b. 1993 in Ukraine) based in Berlin, mainly works with video, installation, and performance. He studied fine art in Lviv, Gdańsk, Poznań and Braunschweig. Vitalii often focuses on the issues of identity, migration, broadly understood borders, and relations between reality and virtuality. Being an author of over ten individual projects, he has also taken part in a large number of group exhibitions and festivals worldwide. In 2013-14 member of the group “Carrousel”, in 2014-17 Vitalii Shupliak initiated “Pi” Gallery and since 2019 develops Kruta Art Residency.

https://vitaliishupliak.com/