Alyona Tokovenko

Traumas, memories and fetishes – for Tokovenko, these are the fundamental pillars of our human identity. In her large-format, object-sensual and yet intimate works, she focuses primarily on these aspects. Mattresses, which she closely associates with sceneries of death, violence and suffering, as well as bloody and deformed body(-parts) are recurring elements in her multimedia works. As an artist from Ukraine, her works can be interpreted as a reference to the atrocities of war and as an expression of collective trauma against the backdrop of Russia’s war of aggression. Tokovenko, however, has been working in this way for a long time, as she perceives her body in a particularly intense and sometimes terrifying way due to epileptic seizures. This is a permanent challenge that she tries to bring back under her control in her work.