Our City Kyiv: Oleksiy Radinsky Films

Salt Beyoğlu, Online

July 28 – August 7, 2022

Thfilmofkyiv Main 01 Oleksiy Radinsky, <i>The Film of Kyiv. Episode One</i> [Kiev Filmi, I. Bölüm] (2017)
Oleksiy Radinsky, The Film of Kyiv. Episode One (2017)
A Crack In the Wall, a public program organized as part of the exhibition Into the Unknown begins with Our City Kyiv screening program, comprising three short films by Oleksiy Radinsky. The selection includes Circulation (2020), The Film of Kyiv. Episode One (2017) and Landslide (2016), taking a closer look at Kyiv’s urban heritage, its architectural and social transformation after 1989, and the expanding cityscape and micro-habitats formed on the axis of power-space relations, stretching from the city center into the periphery.

Following the screening on Thursday, July 28 in Salt Beyoğlu’s Walk-in Cinema, the selected films will be streamed online from Friday, 29 July to Sunday, August 7 via saltonline.org.

The work of artist and writer Oleksiy Radinsky (1984, Ukraine) thematically revolves around social tensions and cultural contradictions created by the Soviet architectural heritage in the context of post-Soviet urban development and infrastructure. His experimental short documentary Circulation is also part of the Into the Unknown exhibition and can be viewed at Salt Beyoğlu until August 14.

Program:

Circulation
2020, 11’30”
Circulation follows an urban route in Kyiv, tracing a familiar yet unknown scenery. With an anthropological view of architecture, Radinsky highlights Kyiv’s architectural heritage from the Soviet era, intertwined with the city’s contemporary urbanization, in the experimental film based on his observations over a three-year period of a 50-kilometer circular train route. Running along iconic governmental structures and architectural monuments from the former communist regime, the route offers a timely perspective on Eastern Europe’s post-Soviet topography. His previous works include Troyeschyna Dva (2017), a critique of Eastern Europe’s infrastructure politics, and Facade Color: Blue (2019), a documentary project on the architect Florian Yuriev.

The Film of Kyiv. Episode One
2017, 8’
Taking an ironic look at the political and social dimensions of architecture, The Film of Kyiv is about the grand project of Podilsky Bridge, which was planned to be built in the city center but could not be completed after 25 years due to large-scale corruption. In this 2017 film, Radinsky looks at how the bridge, in its current state, participates in urban life, transforming into an unplanned and unexpected habitat that responds to different needs of the public, ranging from exercising to socializing, while the local authorities keep searching for ways to complete the project.

Landslide
2016, 29’
In this 2016 film, Radinsky documents a striking experience about the relationship between the city center and the social periphery. Landslide zooms into Petrivska Street, which had lost its spatial identity and suffered social erosion after a series of geological and social disasters, and in the process, evolved into a micro-habitat for those excluded from the society—mainly immigrants, outcasts, dissidents, but also artists, architecture collectives and queer theatre companies. Through this unique social experience that the artist witnessed in person, Radinsky reflects on the process of disintegration of the Eastern Bloc and the society’s search for a different social structure based on solidarity.