Yanka Smetanina Mitglied bei bbK Berlin. VG Bild-Kunst, VG Film Bonn Yanka is a Berlin–based multidisciplinary artist, independent filmmaker and researcher. She studied free graphics, painting and media design and holds an M.A. degree from the Institute for Art in Context, Berlin University of the Arts with a specialization in Artistic work in/with cultural institutions. Since 2004 she has had an ongoing artistic practice with a focus on exhibitions, art projects and teaching. The work includes video installations, experimental films, texts, performances, images. Her visual works and films have been presented at exhibitions, festivals, biennials and triennials in Berlin, Moscow, Tashkent, Mannheim, Vienna, Oslo, Seoul and London, among others. Hers artistic research focuses on decolonial methods, feminist and gender theories, identity and privilege politics, memory studies, the representation of trauma and vulnerability, politics of resistance, performativity, and educational systems. Smetaninas main goals are social interaction and empowerment through contextual participatory art practice, which often takes place in public spaces, often involving socially disadvantaged groups. She is interested in the moment of absence, in the erasure of identity and history by the machinery of repression, and she combines personal and collective memory archives in her projects that reflect the past. In 2013 she was nominated for the Kandinsky Prize (equivalent to the British Turner Prize) in the category Project of the Year, and in 2014 she won the Simply Prize in Moscow. In 2020, her video installation was awarded a prize by BMI Germany on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of German unity and was shown at the Galerie der Einheit in Potsdam. Her visual works and films have been presented at exhibitions, festivals, biennales and triennales in Moscow, Tashkent, Berlin, Mannheim, Vienna, Oslo, Seoul, London and others. The works are in private and public collections, in the RAAN network of Russian art archives of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art.
Foto: Julia Keller
2024 The NYI Global Institute of Critical Cultural Studies.
2021/2023 Institute for Art in Context, Berlin University of the Arts; M.A., specialization: Artistic Work in/with Cultural Institutions; final thesis: Identity Crisis. The representation of fluid identity. The curatorial research exhibition project.
2015/2017 Baza, Institute for Contemporary Art, Moscow. Scholarship. Artistic work in the context of media and scientific image production, philosophy of art.
2004/2005 Institute for Problems of Contemporary Arts, Moscow; specialization: strategies of contemporary art, project management.
1999/2004 State University of Print Media, Moscow. University diploma. Specialization: visual artist, media design; painting, free graphics, printing techniques.
2021. Fifth Wave. Special Project of the 2nd Triennale of Contemporary Art from the Garage Museum, A. V. Shchusev State Museum of Architecture. Moscow (R) | 2019. Art and Technology: For and Against. Uzbekistan Biennale, Central Exhibition Hall. Tashkent (Uz) | 2016. Raw/Cooked. MMMA. Moscow (R) | 2015. Panopticum. 6th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art. Moscow (R) Moscow Art Communities. Moscow Museum. Moscow (R) | Her. Center for Contemporary Art ZARYA. Vladivostok (R) | 2013. 2nd Feminist Pencil, 5th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vladivostok, Kazan, and Oslo
GROUP EXHIBITIONS AND PROJECTS | Selection
2024 The school of the future. | Breaking the Silence: Exploring Urban Soundscapes. 48 stunden Neukölln. Daumenlutscher. Berlin.
2023 Clarification 2.0. Salon Sofie Charlotte, Berlin. (D) | Master exhibition of the Institute of Art in Context, CCA Berlin. (D) Vorschau | Peace. Pride art, Berlin. (D) | Endangered languages, Berlin–Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities Berlin. (D) You are out. 48 Stunde NeueKöln. Artlibera. (D)
2022 XPRMNTL anti–festival. London. (UK) | K–Music and Arts Film Festival (KMAFF). Seoul, (KR) | Mannheim Arts and Film Festival. (D) | Lift–Off Filmmaker Sessions @ PinewoodStudios. Buckinghamshire. (UK) | The Thilsri, International Film Festival. (IN) | Women at war. KW Institute for Contemporary Art Vorschau (D) | Room 252. UdK Berlin | KunstKaufen – The exhibition for explorers, Udk Berlin. (D) | This is not a love song, Project room Galery M, Berlin | Intersectional, Pride art, Berlin. (D)
2021 Fünfte Welle. 2. Triennial of contemporary art. Museum Contemporary Art Garage. Moscow.
2020 Body, ORI Art Forum, Berlin. (D)
2019 Unreal desires. Somos, Berlin. (D) | Berlin transit. Omsk. (R) | Interwinnen Bodies, Somos, Berlin. (D)
2018 Haare, Moscow Museum Modern Art, Moscow. (R) | Present continuous, Zverev Center for Contem-porary Art, Moscow. (R) | Art and technology: for and against, Usbekistan Biennale, Central exhibition hall. Taschcent. (UZ) | There and now!, Manege. Moscow. (R) | Apology of delusions, Moscow Museum Modern Art. Moscow. (R) | The new signs of existence, Quedlinburg. (D) | Survive, bar Babette, Berlin Art Week, Berlin. (D)
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PERSONAL EXHIBITIONS AND PROJECTS | Selection
2024 A moment of silence, eternal remorse. Happening. Daumenlutscher. Berlin. | Vielen Dank für die Blumen! Die Projekträume der Kolonie Wedding, bla-bla project, Berlin.
2022 Dress of freedom. Participative performance. Panda–Kulturplatform. Berlin. (D)
2021 Internal intervention, The project rooms of Kolonie Wedding, bla–bla project, Berlin. (D)
2020 Exercises. Vinogradov Gallery, Berlin. (D) | The lost branches. 'Gallery of Unity' of the Commission '30 Years of Peaceful Revolution and German Unity' at the Unity EXPO on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of German unity in Potsdam. | We're sorry, Rosa Luxemburg, Lauschengriff, Berlin. (D)
2019 Refrain, The project space of Kolonie Wedding, bla–bla project, Berlin. (D)
2017 Hand swing, Fine Art Galery, Moscow. (R)
2015 Texts,Russian–Austrian Cultural Forum, Moscow. (R)
BIENNALES AND MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS | Selection
ART PRIZES AND AWARDS | Selection
2022 XPRMNTL anti–festival. White flag. Official Selections. London. (UK) | K–Music and Arts Film Festival (KMAFF). White flag. Official Selections. Seoul. (KR) | Mannheim Arts and Film Festival. White flag. Best Human Rights Film. (D) | Lift–Off Filmmaker Sessions @ PinewoodStudios. White flag. Official Selections. Buckinghamshire. (UK) | The Thilsri, International Film Festival. White flag. Best music video. Alampattu. (IN)
2020 Prize from Jury der Kommission „30 Jahre Friedliche Revolution und Deutsche Einheit“, Berlin. (D)
2017/2018 Art Russia, Top 100 artists. InArt Analytics. (R)
2015 Scholarship. Institute of Contemporary Arts, Baza, Moscow. (R)
2014 Just Award 2014, prize winner, Moscow. (R)
2013 Kandinsky Prize 2013, Nominees, Category Project of year, Moscow. (R)
2011 Scotch 2010, special prize winner, Moscow. (R)
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STIPENDIES AND PROJECT FUNDING | Selection
2024 The NYI Global Institute of Critical Cultural Studies, scholarship for the winter course.
2022 This is not a love song – spaces for activation. Winning funding from the UdK Commission for artistic and academic projects; further support comes from the housing company degewo.
2019/2020 Where does the Homeland begin? Project on cultural identity and diversity with ethnic German resettlers. Funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Integration and Social Affairs.
2018 Survive. Award for artistic project spaces and initiatives. Bar Babette, Berlin Art Week.
2015/2017 Scholarship. Baza, Institute for Contemporary Art, as well as Pyrfir Performance University, Moscow.
2014/2016 The Kitchen | Art Workshops for Women. Funded by the R. Luxemburg Foundation. Moscow. Preview
2016 Graphic novel. Workshops. Supported by the R. Luxemburg Foundation. Kazan.
I understand myself as an interdisciplinary and transnational nomad, an anti-fascist, a pacifist, radical anarcho-feminist with migrations experience, and I speak and act from the position of an oppressed minority. A decisive and pivotal moment in my artistic practice was the screening of the project "Residents of the 5th psychiatric hospital in Khotkovo,"(1) which publicly exposed the oppression of women faced with repressive psychiatry and my own. Anarchism with a public confession of being a feminist was superimposed on my multicultural roots, leading me to be excluded from the majority community. In defending my position I felt the need to speak openly and unabashedly, without apology for leaving the place where they were trying to put me. As I gradually found my voice, I spoke up for those who had not yet found that strength. By exploring my own weakness and powerlessness (2), (3), (17),
and trying to fill the missing gaps, I came to understand how the private affects the public.
Working with family archives and confronting the mechanisms of repression and manipulation of collective memory, led me to the process of reconstructing my own history. As an artist and performer I was interested in the moment of absence, the erasure by the repressive machine of personality (4), (5) and history (6), (7), I connected the personal and the collective archive of memory in my projects reflecting the Soviet past (8), (9).
Being in a country with an increasingly patriarchal conservative background, I could not get past the process of women's oppression by sexism and objectification. Which provided an impetus for exploring the body and queerness, in the context of memory and trauma. (10), (11).
Finding it necessary to support the position of the socially weak disabled and the elderly I did projects tied to a specific place about acute social themes. (12).
Being a mother myself, I was interested in such a vulnerable group as children (13), (14), (15).
Events in Ukraine strengthened my anti-war (16), (17), and (18) anti-state position, I decided to leave Russia as well.
I was born in Bashkiria, an autonomous Soviet republic, in a small Bashkir town where most residents spoke Bashkir and Tatar, and still, remember a few phrases in Tatar. My multinational background prevented me from being recognized as "my own" to many, but rather exposed me to even more significant exclusion. "Being different" made me part of a community of others.
In corrupt Russia, the mechanism of memory falsification for political purposes is well established. Soviet rule, interspersed with the dictatorships of Stalin and Putin, has created a tool for censoring and suppressing information and historical memory by canning archives and correcting school textbooks. In a country without democracy, with violence against women and rampant discrimination, the feminist movement has been the most progressive, both in its struggle for the rights of oppressed minorities and in its decolonial preservation of memory. This is how I came to collect the archives of my multi-ethnic family, in which almost the entire older generation was subjected to repression. The forced exile of members of my family left a mark on my perception of life. In the absence of the possibility (in fact, until the beginning of the 21st century) to move freely in Russia, this fact strongly influenced my fate. In the project "Lost Branches" (7) dedicated to my German grandmother, it was important for me to show not only the difficult war period for Russian Germans, but also the moment of their non-recognition in their new homeland. Now identity as a construct and the preservation of cultural memory are the main focus of my research interests.
CURATORIAL PRACTICE | Selection
2024 A Minute of Silence. Eternal Regret. Daumenlutscher. | Many Thanks for the Flowers! Kolonie Wedding
2023 Identitätskrise. Curatorial Research Project, Exhibition. Preview Passwort: crisis
2022 This is not a love song – space for Activation. Exhibition. Project Space Galerie M, Berlin. Preview | A Feast in the Time of the Plague. Exhibition. Projektraum Art Matters, Berlin. Preview | YML Exhibition: When the Flying Elephant Visited Berlin… Workshops | Exhibition. Märkischen Museum, Berlin
2021 | 2022 Feministische Unterhaltungen – feminists converse | Participatory Action. Discussion Rounds in Public Space. Berlin. Preview | Internal Intervention. bla-bla Projektraum, Kolonie Wedding, Berlin
2019 | 2020 Wo beginnt die Heimat? Project on Cultural Identity and Diversity with Older Resettlers. Workshops | Exhibition. Festival Offenes Neukölln. Preview
TEACHING EXPERIENCE | Selection
2021 - Lecturer. Honorary work within the project DIGI-MEE(H)R – Safe Navigation on the Internet Reloaded
2018 | 2021 Lecturer. Art Teacher. Everic e.V., Berlin
2016 Lecturer. Art project. Theoretical-practical seminar. Cultural Center Vnukovo, Moscow
2015 | 2016 Lecturer of the Media Project, School for Architecture and Design, Moscow
2015 Lecturer. Graphic Stories: Comic in Contemporary Arts. Research Institute DAR, Moscow
2014/2015 Lecturer of the Animation and Illustration, College of Printing Arts name Ivan Fedorov
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FILMOGRAPHY | Selection
2024. Déjà-vu. 16 Min. | 2023. The Human. 2-Channel Video Installation, 2.5 Min., Experimental Animation; in exchange with ELAR | 2022. My Way. 5 Min. | White Flag. 2 Min. | 2020. Late Resettlers. 4-Channel Video Installation, 7 Min., Experimental Animation | 2018. Escape from Troy. Animated Documentary, 71 Min., EFM Berlinale | 2015. The Staircase. 9:45 Min. | 2014. The Erasure. 13:42 Min. | 2012. 2. Stage. 7:03 Min.
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ESSAYS | TEXTS| Publications | Selection
2024. Memory studies and commemoration in documentary and video art: Searching for new forms of archive. Constellations, The NYI Global Institute of Cultural, Cognitive and Linguistic Studies | Live with Class. Critique. Essay | The Bad Mother. Critique | 2023. It's Hard to Be a God, Unless You Are Anselm. Critique | Identity Crisis. Autoethnographic Essay. | Give Peace a Chance. Outdoor Literature, Vienna. | 2022. "7 Types of Forgetting" by Paul Connerton on the Example of Memory Erasure in Russian Culture. syg.ma | Endless Chain of Privileges. Memory Moments by Implicated Subject. syg.ma | Context Appropriation or Three Days in the Life of Documenta.15. eat-art.biz | Amnesia. Messy Glossary. 12th Berlin Biennale. | The Art of Participation. Exhibition Text. | Dress of Freedom. Catalog. | 2021. Where to Take Feminism in the Former USSR? Gender Studies, No. 25 (1/2021): Kharkiv Center for Gender Studies. - 215 pp. ISSN 1682-3265 © Kharkiv Center for Gender Studies
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FURTHER EDUCATION | SUMMER SCHOOLS
2019 PAS: Performance Art Studies, Berlin |UdK - Artist training PERFROMING ARTS III | 2018 - 2019 Projektraum Mehrwert Kunst, SBKG, Berlin | 2016/2017 Hochschule f. Performance, Pyrfir, Moskau | 2015 Sommerschule für engagierte Kunst des Kollektivs Chto Delat, R.Luxemburg Stiftung, Berlin| 2014 Queerfemaklzia, Wien, (AU)Sprachen: Deutsch C2.1 | EnglischB2 | Russisch Muttersprache
IT: MS Office | Mac OS | Adobe Creative Cloud | andere Programme für Videoproduktion und Bearbeitung wie iMovie, DaVinci Resolve, CupCut, usw. | Blender | Studiobinder | Storyboarder | stable diffusion | Chat GPT | Wix
Medienherstellung, beruf Tätigkeit | wichtigste Projekte | Auswahl
2015 Animation Spezialistin, Fernsehsender Kultur | 2002/2010 Gründer und Projektleiter, Design Studio Takaja Giezn.