The consequences of armed conflict, and how they weave themselves into our lives, provide the theme for the latest exhibition at the East Hawai'i Cultural Center. “Ghosts of War” presents the work of five women artists. 

 

The opening is on Friday February 3 at 6pm, and the exhibition is on view until March 31. It encompasses a range of mediums and narratives, as each artist has a different story to tell.

 

In her film Letter to a Turtledove, Dana Kavelina combines amateur footage found on the internet, shot subsequent to Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, with archival footage of Donbas from 1930, when the region was a hot spot for Stalinist industrialization. Her poetic text recombines the disparate materials into a surreal anti-war poem, noting the distortion of history and the dehumanization of the entire Ukrainian region of the country.

 

A survivor of the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), painter Reem Bassous, who is currently living in Hawaii, evokes memories from her youth, placing her personal experiences in the context of historical unrest and a national trajectory. The history of ancient and modern Beirut includes traumas of place and the inhabitants of the artist's hometown. 

 

Gamma Trace, the subtle work of the Polish artist Monika Niwelinska, was created in the desert in New Mexico, approximately 60 miles north of White Sand National Monument. On July 16, 1945, under the codename Trinity Site, the first atomic tests in history were carried out there. The artist investigates whether the land in this area is still radioactive, using photosensitive copper plates and exposing them to gamma rays in the radioactive field.

 

Gongsan Kim, a Korean artist living in the USA since1997, pays tribute to the victims of the North Korean regime in her works. Her ritual performance involves making layered sculptures – altar-like images envisioned to heal the wounded spirits of the murdered victims of the dictatorship, thrown into collective pits without tombstones or names.

 

The Morphology of War by Svitlana Biedarieva focuses on the idea that each society gives birth to its own monsters. Svitlana uses images from European illuminated manuscripts and bestiaries, reinterpreting them digitally – implying that the absurdity of history does not change with centuries.

 

Says EHCC Gallery Director Andrzej Kramarz, “The exceptional artists presented here encourage us to reflect on the topic of war and ask ourselves important questions. Conflicts and their results are not limited by geography. They influence us much more than we think, in more ways than we expect, and they are closer than we suppose.”