Water, Usually in a Shape of a River
Water, usually in the shape of a river, carries infrastructures, shapes perceptions, and records transformations. A river exists simultaneously as a border, a defense mechanism, and a source of both life and death. Its water can become a resource, a weapon, or a memorial.
Water Usually in the Shape of a River is the first solo exhibition by Ukrainian artist and researcher Sonya Isupova.
The exhibition explores Soviet infrastructural projects and their modes of representation, focusing on the hydroelectric dams built along the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine, particularly the Kakhovka and Dnipro hydroelectric stations. Through film and archival research, Isupova examines how these projects reshaped both landscape and collective memory.
The exhibition forms part of her doctoral research on the effects of colonial infrastructure on the landscape. She approaches Soviet films about infrastructure as “imaginary maps” that helped construct a unified Soviet space while simultaneously preserving visual records of territories before their transformation.
Positioned between monumentality and utility, Soviet hydroelectric projects produced a distinct visual language
that inscribed political power onto the landscape. Through archival artifacts and speculative reconstruction, the exhibition revisits these submerged landscapes and the histories embedded within them.
At the center of the exhibition is the essay film Water Usually in the Shape of a River, which functions as a visual
map of constructed landscape memory.
photo credit: Marily Simenson-Plakso
Athe center of the exhibition is the essay film Water Usually in the Shape of a River,
which functions as a visual map of constructed landscape memory.
Developed over a year of research into hydroelectric dams, the film use montage as a method of artistic inquiry, combining archival footage with reflections on the materiality of film itself. Embracing the fragmentary and open-ended nature of the essay film form, the work invites critical engagement rather than narrative closure.
Athe center of the exhibition is the essay film Water Usually in the Shape of a River,
which functions as a visual map of constructed landscape memory.
Developed over a year of research into hydroelectric dams, the film use montage as a method of artistic inquiry, combining archival footage with reflections on the materiality of film itself. Embracing the fragmentary and open-ended nature of the essay film form, the work invites critical engagement rather than narrative closure.
which functions as a visual map of constructed landscape memory.
Developed over a year of research into hydroelectric dams, the film use montage as a method of artistic inquiry, combining archival footage with reflections on the materiality of film itself. Embracing the fragmentary and open-ended nature of the essay film form, the work invites critical engagement rather than narrative closure.
