Slinko, the inaugural artist of the Gene Zwozdesky artist in residence program, was born in Ukraine and currently lives in the United States. Her practice is informed by scholarship on labour, agency and politics, and her inspiration comes from interactions with ordinary people, localized contexts and material culture.

With a sharp eye for the personal and the anecdotal, Slinko often zooms in on the micro within the macro of larger historical and political narratives, offering specific insights into the workings of power and its effects on individuals and society. Slinko’s practice encompasses a wide range of media, including political satire, drawing, moving image, performance, printmaking and graphic design.

Drawing from her experiences growing up in East Ukraine’s Donbas during the final years of the Soviet Union, Slinko’s perspective is a specific blend of personal history and scholarly insight. Slinko earned her MFA in Sculpture and Extended Media from VCU in Richmond, VA, and has been awarded the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship. Her work has been shown at Vox Centre Contemporaine in Montreal, and The Drawing Center in New York among others.

Learn more about Slinko by visiting her website.

The Project

Slinko’s project during her residency is titled Motherless Nation and aims to explore the intricate relationship between memory, identity, power and personal agency. Specifically, she is interested in examining how Ukrainian refugees deal with forms of belonging that are impacted by their detachment from their homeland, culture and language. What happens to a national identity if a homeland is deprived of land and home, and its citizens seek refuge elsewhere? To investigate these questions, Slinko will interview recent Ukrainian refugees and connect with scholars in political philosophy, psychology and sociology. The findings will be presented in various formats, including a video, a number of sculptural works and an artist book comprised of transcribed interviews and essay.