At some point during 2022, my life became infiltrated by a series of powerful, superhuman Ukrainian women. This was not a surprise – I cultivated it, because colleagues remaining in Ukraine were outside my sphere of influence, and anyway wrapped up defending a large-scale invasion. What I didn’t expect was the powerful effect that these humans would have on me, and how this would somehow enter into all facets of my life: from washing dishes, to my daily routines, to my politics, to my social interactions.
The Krekhno sisters (left and right), with Piliuhina (centre).
Photo: Richard Pettifer
Cultural Workers Studio is a
shared studio space in Flutgraben e.V., which began as an activist intervention
following a series of ‘refugees welcome’ emergency meetings in early 2022. The
studio was initially donated to us by Flutgraben e.V., and conceived as a
co-working space for people fleeing the war in Ukraine. In that first week,
there were just 2 users: me – critic, director, and decorated cultural theorist
– and the teen-genius Ann Krekhno. Anya sat across from me on a small wooden
desk, staring at me with a “don’t fuck with me” stare that she had perfected
during interactions with older men in the refugee camps. That first week of
Anya aggressively defending herself – me clowning in a response that I hoped
read as “harmless idiot” – sticks in my mind as my first negotiation with the
group, a first of many experiences of self-definition against and with this
powerful, angry, displaced force, one which would come to largely define my
next 12 months.
