a quiet rush

“i wonder—how much can one
actually see
before turning mad?
before going numb?

i close my eyes.
enough seeing.
and a quiet rush
floods over me.”

Kafa writes poetry and operates drones. ‘Kafa’ is her military callsign, and now her chosen name, too. With others from the LGBTIQ+ military she/they fight not only for a free Ukraine, but a Ukraine in which queer love, life and imagination can flourish.

In this cycle of Personal Accounts, 11 woman-identifying, queer, and trans survivors traverse a spectrum of patriarchal violence, recounting experiences of structural, physical, and psychological harm. This is the violence of Russian invasion and war: of rape, capture, and torture. But it is also the engrained, intramural violence of a deeply patriarchal society: of misogyny, queerphobia, transphobia and abuse within families, churches, workspaces, even within the queer community—and yes, the Ukrainian military, too. And yet, in the ‘quiet rush’ of everyday practices, this spectrum of violence is punctured, as through poetry, writing, collage, biking, piercings, and tattoos, each of these remarkable individuals articulate something of what a free Ukraine is to them.

—Gabrielle Goliath

Produced with support from the PinchukArtCentre
Special thanks to Insight (Ukraine), the LGBTIQ+ Military

Survivor Offerings

In addition to what is presented (and withheld) in the installation itself, collaborators in Personal Accounts sometimes choose to share supplementary offerings which are made available online. These may be narrations of their experience or practices of survival and wellbeing, such as prayers, poems, playlists, recipes, or artworks.

A queer woman who chooses to withhold her name
Daria
Daniil
Daryna
Edward
Emily
Kafa
Max
Pasha
River
Victoria