Photo credit The Denison Museum

Denison University’s Sustainability Office, the Denison Museum, and faculty across disciplines have worked together over the past year to create an exhibition and program series for Fall 2023 centered around the concepts of resilience and change. Ideas of transformation, growth, and adaptability are central themes in understanding and navigating change. 

This exhibition features three international contemporary artists. One of them is Zinaida.

ZINAIDA (Ukraine) is one of the most Ukrainian important artists working today. Stemming from extensive ethnographic research and close collaboration with indigenous communities, ZINAIDA's practice revolves around the study of mythologies, national symbols, archaic imagery, and the role of women as carriers of sacred knowledge. Her research journeys in different regions in Ukraine aim to study and preserve cultural heritage. ZINAIDA leads volunteer initiatives and carries out philanthropic activities in Chornobyl Exclusion Zone. She additionally founded the ARTREHUB Volunteer Initiative and developed her Red Thread methodology for children with special needs and autism disorders.

The artist has been featured in solo exhibitions at Pinchuk Art Centre (2015, Kyiv, Ukraine), Black Bride projects at the 56th Venice Biennale, and Dakini at the 58th Venice Biennale. ZINAIDA participated in the Art Lima Contemporary Art Fair (Lima, Peru), Art Kyiv Contemporary International Forum of Contemporary Art, and GOGOLFEST Interdisciplinary Festival. She received her BA from the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in Fine Art and Art History, as well as a BA in Psychology from National University of Kyiv. She is a member of the Food of War International Community. In 2015, she was a project facilitator at Marina Abramovic - In Residence (Kaldor Public Art Project, Sydney, Australia).

The Rooted 2.0 video project is an extensive ethnographic research that observes the cozy life of the Polishchuks (an ethnographic group of the Polissia region) in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Ordinary happiness, which, despite adverse circumstances, smolders in dozens of residents from this region.