Dnypro:
Witnessing changes of the Ukrainian landscape: surveilling, tracking and targeting

E-WERK Luckenwalde, JUNGE AKADEMIE Akademie der Künste and E.ON Foundation are pleased to present the group exhibition of Mensch Maschine fellows 2024–2025 at E-WERK featuring Assem Hendawi, Emerson Culurgioni & Viktor Brim, hn. lyonga & Safiya Yon, Kira Xonorika, Maithu Bùi, Rae Hsu and Sonya Isupova.

For this work, Sonya Isupova built a metaphorical satellite, a self-constructed machine that hovers above the land, mapping data with limited accuracy and transforming satellite images into maps. Using NDWI (Normalized Difference Water Index) data, which monitors water content in vegetation and open water bodies, she charts the Dnypro River’s altered course after the dam’s destruction. With the dam gone, the river has returned to its original bed. The map unfurls like the river itself, revealing swirls, rapids, channels, and spurs piece by piece. Imperfect and incomplete, the map embodies the inherent inaccuracies of all mapping — the only certainty is that the roll keeps turning, and the river keeps emerging.

For the exhibition at E-WERK Luckenwalde, Isupova constructed a new vertical drawing machine, transforming the way the maps are presented. Instead of lying flat, the maps cascade downward to the floor as they are generated in real time, allowing audiences to witness mapping as it happens, emphasizing both the fluidity of the landscape and the continuous production of knowledge.

Photo: Laila Kaletta