About
Security Guarantees is an exhibition by Zhanna Kadyrova, curated by Ksenia Malykh and Leonid Marushchak, and commissioned by Tetyana Berezhna, Deputy Prime Minister for Humanitarian Policy of Ukraine — Minister of Culture of Ukraine. The Ukrainian Pavilion’s project raises the issue of unfulfilled security guarantees, for which Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal in 1996. In 1994, three years after gaining independence, Ukraine joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and relinquished its nuclear arsenal in exchange for security assurances from the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Russian Federation. These states, along with Ukraine, became signatories to the Budapest Memorandum, which recognised Ukraine's territorial integrity and committed the other three parties not only to refrain from threatening Ukraine, but to seek its protection should a threat arise. The core of the project is Zhanna Kadyrova's sculpture, The Origami Deer. In 2019, this sculpture was installed in Yuvileynyi (Jubilee) Park in Pokrovsk, Donetsk Oblast. On the same site, a dismantled Soviet nuclear-capable jet once stood.
Soviet jet Su-7 aircraft, installed on a pedestal in Yuvileynyi (Jubilee) Park in Krasnoarmiysk (now Pokrovsk), Donetsk Oblast, September 1997. Photo from the collection of Mykola Bilokon, archived by the Pokrovsk Historical Museum and digitised by the Center for Urban History (Lviv).
Soviet jet Su-7 aircraft, installed on a pedestal in Yuvileynyi (Jubilee) Park in Krasnoarmiysk (now Pokrovsk), Donetsk Oblast, September 1997. Photo from the collection of Mykola Bilokon, archived by the Pokrovsk Historical Museum and digitised by the Center for Urban History (Lviv).
The Origami Deer is rooted in the tradition of park sculpture, yet takes a contemporary shape. The sculpture was cast on a pedestal and was not designed for further transportation. However, in 2024, as the front line approached the city, Zhanna travelled to Pokrovsk with the NGO Museum Open for Renovation, and, together with a group of specialists and municipal workers from Pokrovsk, evacuated the sculpture.
Still from the film IDP (dir. Zhanna Kadyrova)
Still from the film IDP (dir. Zhanna Kadyrova)
The project in Venice will be presented in two locations. The sculpture itself will be exhibited hanging from the crane of a truck in the Giardini della Biennale. Alongside this, the exhibition at the Biennale Arte 2026 will feature archival materials related to the Budapest Memorandum, as well as video documentation of the sculpture's evacuation and its journey to Venice, created with the participation of Natalka Dyachenko, Pavel Sterec, and Max Maslo. This aspect of the exhibition will be presented at the Ukrainian Pavilion in the Arsenale.