In Copenhagen, a contemporary Ukrainian art exhibition titled MY BODY IS A BATTLEFIELD was held, created by the Spilne Art team with support from the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture, Ajax Systems, and MHP. The exhibition was presented during the Informal Meeting of EU Ministers of Culture and Media in Copenhagen, as part of Denmark’s EU Council Presidency.
The exhibition features sculptures by Maria Kulikovska, a Ukrainian multimedia artist, architect, performance activist, researcher, and educator. Her works symbolize the strength, resilience, and beauty of Ukrainian culture, which continues to live and create even during wartime.
At the core of the artist’s concept is her own body—not as a symbol or abstraction, but as a real site of memory, struggle, and pain. For over a decade, she has created sculptural works—exact replicas of her body—through which she explores themes of loss, female embodiment, war, and survival.
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A prominent piece in the exhibition is a sculpture of a pregnant woman from the series “After Death Comes Life.” It is a cast of the artist’s body made five months before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Beneath the “skin” of the sculpture are bullet casings and flowers, symbolizing life emerging through the experience of war.
Back in 2014, in occupied Donetsk, during the seizure of the Izolyatsia Art Center, pro-Russian militants shot Kulikovska’s soap sculptures, which had been part of the “Gender” exhibition. This act of destruction became a tragic yet powerful testament to the freedom embodied in Ukrainian art, which provokes fear in those who seek to destroy it.
Maria Kulikovska was born in Kerch, a city on the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine, one of the former socialist republics of the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), in 1988. Her childhood was shaped by the consequences of the communist bloc's structural collapse. While a few reaped enormous wealth, most succumbed to poverty and a sense of hopelessness.
Kulikovska studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in Kyiv from 2007 to 2013, graduating with a master's in architecture. She also completed a further master's degree in fine arts at Konstfack, University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm.
Currently, Kulikovska lives and works between Ukraine and EU countries. Born in Kerch, she lost the ability to return to her homeland after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and is officially recognized as an internally displaced person in Ukraine.
The exhibition was created by Spilne Art, founded by Natalia Tkachenko, with the project made possible through the support of Ukrainian businesses Ajax Systems and MHP.
