communicated date: usp_custom_field: 04/25/2024
Author : usp_custom_field_2 : Studio Tommaseo
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Contemporary Trieste
Inauguration Friday 26 April 2024 at 6.00 pm
dialogue with the artist Mark Chehodaiev, the President of the Community of Sant’Egidio FVG Paolo Parisini, the founding member of the Linea d’Ombra association Francesco Cibati and the team of the No Name Kitchen Trieste organization
edited by Alice Debianchi
Studio Tommaseo is pleased to host Welcome to Khandwalathe staff of Mark Chehodaiev winner of the Young European Emerging Award Trieste Contemporanea 2023. The exhibition, curated by Alice Debianchi, exposes a new project that reflects the current situation of the Silos of Trieste. The works are the restitution of a journey that the artist made to Khandwala – emblem of the Silos – a parallel city located near the Old Port of Trieste and populated by over two hundred inhabitants. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog which will be presented later and will include images of the works installed in the Trieste space. The exhibition Welcome to Khandwala presents a series of souvenirs that Chehodaiev created after entering the Silos of Trieste, souvenir objects produced to safeguard the memory of the site and tell of its transformation into a place of refuge.
Walking among the tents and the garbage, the young Ukrainian artist captured the explored space with his camera, fusing his memories into small and precious ones memorabiliaIn Pashto – an Iranian language spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan – “khandwala” means “broken house” or “ruined house”, but in Trieste it is the arrival point for migrants who travel the Balkan route: starting from Asia and moving by land on a long and hostile route between Greece, Albania, Croatia and Slovenia, they arrive in Trieste, a crossroads and starting point towards other European countries.
Currently over two hundred people live in Khandwala in a huge ruined building without electricity or running water.
At the end of the exhibition on 8 June 2024 from 5pm to 8pm Trieste Contemporanea will organize a food, clothing and medicine collection together with the Community of Sant’Egidio FVG, the Linea d’Ombra association and the No Name Kitchen Trieste organization which support migrants along the Balkan route actively in Trieste. Donors will receive one of Mark Chehodaiev’s souvenirs as a gift (while supplies last) by registering via an online form which will soon be published, together with the list of items that can be donated, on the Trieste Contemporanea website.
The focus of Chehodaiev’s work revolves around the idea of capturing and preserving moments, moments. In his artistic practice he uses a variety of languages, including photography, installation and site-specific interventions. His main interest lies in discovering how space interacts with personal experience and memory. Starting from the identification of a specific site – which serves as a source of inspiration for his projects, be it his room, a street or a hotel in the Alps – his creative process continues in observing, walking and explore the places.
Mark Chehodaiev (Kiev, UA, 1997) lives and works in Vienna. From 2014 to 2020 she studied scenography and cinematography at the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in Kiev. After graduating she worked in the film industry as a product designer for commercials and films. In 2019 she attended a contemporary art course at the Academy of Media Arts in Kiev, starting her artistic practice. In 2021 she moved to Vienna to specialize in site-specific art at Die Angewandte, University of Applied Arts.
The Trieste Contemporanea Young European Emerging Award It has been awarded every two years since 1999 to artists under thirty from Central Eastern Europe whose research has stood out for its particular significance. The prize gives the artist the opportunity to conceive an unprecedented exhibition project as well as to be able to document it with a publication.
Image: Mark Chehodaiev, Welcome to Khandwala2024, photography by Mark Chehodaiev
