forces that do not exist

hlibzawod | kyiv | ukraine 2023

“Forces That Do Not Exist” is a solo project by Anton Tkachenko devoted to the theme of loneliness and the relationship between the individual and their surrounding environment. In this body of work, the artist examines how conditions of radical instability affect a person’s inner supports and reshape the ways reality is perceived and understood.

During Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Tkachenko was forced to remain in the country without his close family and loved ones. Finding himself in a state of isolation and persistent uncertainty, he began to grapple with the question of “how to go on living.” Unexpectedly, he found an answer in a belief in otherworldly forces — a practice previously foreign to him. This experience became the starting point for an artistic reflection on faith as a mechanism of psychological survival.

The project draws on both collective memory and the artist’s personal experience, particularly his recollections of the 1990s, when periods of social and economic crisis led to a rise in superstition and reliance on alternative “forces.” In such contexts, folk healers replaced doctors, fortune-telling supplanted financial literacy, and spells substituted for the development of social skills and broader socialization. The exhibition approaches these practices not as marginal phenomena, but as symptoms of a deeper human need for control, meaning, and hope.

The works presented were created during a residency at the Ostriv research-and-art platform in the summer of 2023, held with the support of the international hosting network Artists at Risk. Ostriv is a multidisciplinary space located in Kyiv’s Solomianskyi district, founded on the basis of the Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture, bringing together artistic, scientific, and educational practices.

Anton Tkachenko (b. 1994) is an artist and curator, and the founder of the self-organized space 127 Garage and a context-based gallery.