Dana Kavelina
The Lemberg Machine (2023)
Courtesy of the artist
Dana Kavelina, The Lemberg Machine (2023), video, photo: steirischer herbst / kunst-documentation.com, courtesy of the artist
Dana Kavelina’s newly commissioned film tackles a difficult and complex subject: the Lviv Pogroms of June and July 1941 and the subsequent unfolding of the Holocaust in the city—incited by the Nazi occupation. Kavelina’s film tackles it through animation, which she understands not only as a technique but as a figure for resurrection. A fictional setting, the laboratory of history, frames multiple voices speaking the many languages of the city. They tell a history rewritten from the perspective of the resurrected victims, based on eyewitness accounts of survivors.
Dana Kavelina (1995, Melitopol, Ukraine) is an artist and filmmaker. She works with text, painting, graphics, video, and installation and produces animated films that explore personal and historical trauma, vulnerability, and perceptions of war outside mainstream narratives. Her works have been exhibited at the Kmytiv Museum; the Closer Art Center, Kyiv; and the Sakharov Center, Moscow. She has received awards at the Odesa International Film Festival and the KROK International Animated Film Festival.
Commissioned by steirischer herbst ʼ23
Produced by steirischer herbst ʼ23 and Dana Kavelina
With the kind support of ERSTE Foundation
Dana Kavelina at Artist Talks
22.9., 13:30–14:30
Video, ca. 53 min.
Yiddish, Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, and German with English subtitles
Church of Ruined Modernity
Group exhibition
Director of photography: Mikhail Chelnokov
Prop makers / decorators: Anna Nykytyuk, Olena Golubova, Dana Kavelina
Animators: Olena Golubova, Dana Kavelina
Music: Mikhail Lylov
Commissioned by steirischer herbst ʼ23
Produced by steirischer herbst ʼ23 and Dana Kavelina
With the kind support of ERSTE Foundation
Dana Kavelina at Artist Talks
22.9., 13:30–14:30