Oleksiy Sai
The project < Focus Ukrainian Artists > is hosted on the HEK Blog and 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 because they have to leave the country, or are engaged on humanitarian fronts, or because Ukrainian institutions cannot continue their activities, prompt support from cultural institutions. Through their work and by retaining their independent agency, artists contribute to a civic discourse through their artistic practices, and it is equally important that this reaches a wider audience. In line with HEK’s mission, 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 also invited to share their statements on the blog if they wish.
Artist’s statement:
Our country is at war – and this war is inhumane and destructive. Russia is now indiscriminately bombing cities, entirely ruining them. Russia is trying to destroy Ukraine. They have aimed for this for a long time, this is not the plan of just one only crazy person. Their plan is to extinct our culture, language, and identity. It is not only the people, their homes and their property that are under threat. The culture of a country is under threat, the culture that has embraced humanistic values and worked, struggling with itself, to assert this choice. And now we are fighting. We are busy fighting a war – but we are also busy building our culture. And we have something to rely on – we will survive, we will build everything.
And it is important to show our culture now everywhere even if we are not physically there. Presence without presence – it is very similar to the current situation of Ukraine’s presence in the world – we are heard, we are supported, it is wonderful, and our country and every person is eternally grateful for it – but we are bombarded. And this is happening in the material world.
We need help. Different kinds of help are needed. Yes. But foremost – we need involvement and interest – long-term and sustained interest in us as a culture and us as a society. We still have a country to rebuild. The whole world needs us, we have to survive – and not allow a new Middle Ages in Europe to happen. And we have everything for that. There is the whole world – which can not only help us and empathize. It understands us. In the end our enemies will crawl back into their hole. They will have no choice.
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У нашій країні війна – і це війна нелюдська та руйнівна. Росія зараз безладно бомбардує міста, руйнує їх цілком. Росія намагається вбити Україну. Вони цього давно хотіли, це не план одного божевільного. Їхній план – знищити нашу культуру, мову, ідентичність. Під загрозою не лише люди, їхні будинки та майно. Під загрозою культура країни, яка зробила цивілізаційний вибір, і працювала, борючись із собою, над тим, щоб цей вибір утвердити. І зараз ми воюємо. Ми зайняті війною – але разом із цим ми зайняті побудовою культури. І у нас є на що спиратися – ми виживемо, ми все збудуємо.
І показувати нашу культуру зараз важливо скрізь, навіть якщо фізично нас немає. Присутність без присутності – це дуже схоже на нинішню ситуацію присутності України у світі – ми на слуху, нас підтримують, це чудово і наша країна, і кожна людина за це безмежно вдячна – але нас бомбять. І це відбувається у матеріальному світі.
Ми потребуємо допомоги. Допомоги різного роду. Так. Але важливо – ми потребуємо участі та інтересу – довгострокового та стабільного інтересу до нас як до культури і до нас як до суспільства. Нам ще вiдбудовувати країну. Ми потрібні всьому світу, ми маємо вижити – і маємо не допустити нового середньовіччя в Європі. І у нас все для цього є. Є весь світ – який може не лише допомагати та співпереживати. Він може зрозуміти нас, відчути нас. Тоді наші вороги відповзуть у свою нору. Вони не мають вибору.
Oleksiy Sai, Data Mountains, 2012
Oleksiy Sai, Hangover, 2019
Oleksiy Sai, Pink skyline, 2019
Oleksiy Sai, Black clouds 2, 2019
Oleksiy Sai, Together in one direction, 2021
About Excel-Art Series:
It is difficult to assess the scale of today’s global culture. Trying to find an adequate visual language to describe contemporary processes I make a series of works in the program which counts the money – Microsoft Excel. Millions of administrators produce their work without coming into contact with reality – and the data I use as elements of visual language can be clearly understood by a person of the corporate culture – perhaps the youngest of the well-defined cultures of humanity.
I see that this society has faced such significant changes, I think that this stable corporate world will change completely. But the basis of this culture is numbers. not visual attributes or a code of employment. Therefore, this culture will live – at least for some time.
Oleksii Sai (b. 1975) lives and works in Kyiv, Ukraine. Trained as a graphic designer, Oleksii Sai in 2001 graduated Ukrainian academy of arts and architecture as a graphic artist. He works across the media, using new media and different programs as a tool. His excel-art series went viral on the internet, criticizing the office hierarchy, achievement society, and capitalism. PinchukArtCentre Prize nominee ’09, he is widely exhibited. Oleksiy Sai took part in many group and solo exhibitions in Ukraine and abroad. His works were exhibited at Black Square Gallery (Miami, the USA), Saatchi Gallery (London, the UK), Bunsen Goertz Gallery (Nurembreg, Germany), PERMM Museum of Contemporary Art (Perm, Russia), etc.