Ukrainian Origami Deer sculpture to be showcased at European Parliament ahead of Venice Biennale
The Origami Deer, a sculpture by Ukrainian artist Zhanna Kadyrova, will be presented at the European Parliament in Brussels on 18 March. The installation will be the centrepiece of the future Ukrainian pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale.
Source: UP.Kultura, citing the Ukrainian pavilion team
Details: The presentation will take place as part of the public programme titled Ukrainian Pavilion: Zhanna Kadyrova’s Origami Deer on the Road to Venice. On 18 March, the sculpture will be on display at Esplanade Solidarność 1980, near the European Parliament building, and will remain there until the evening.
The event will also feature a discussion titled Culture as National Security, focusing on support for Ukrainian culture during the war, along with a screening of the VPO (IDPs) documentary, which tells the story of the sculpture’s evacuation from Pokrovsk in 2024.
Participants in the discussion will include Tetiana Berezhna, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister for Humanitarian Policy and Minister of Culture, artist Zhanna Kadyrova and European experts and officials.
Origami Deer will be the centrepiece of the Ukrainian pavilion Security Guarantees at the Venice Biennale, which opens on 9 May. The project explores the issue of unfulfilled security guarantees following Ukraine’s renunciation of nuclear weapons.
The sculpture was created by Zhanna Kadyrova in 2019 in Pokrovsk, on the site of a dismantled Soviet aircraft once capable of carrying nuclear weapons. In 2024, with fighting drawing near, it had to be evacuated – a process that became part of the project’s artistic narrative.
After its presentation at the European Parliament, Origami Deer will also be exhibited in Brussels near the Bozar Centre on 19 March and in Paris on 23 March. It has previously been shown in Warsaw, Vienna, Prague and Berlin.
The curators of the Ukrainian pavilion revealed earlier that the sculpture in Venice is planned to be installed in a public space, suspended from a lorry crane on the lagoon waterfront, symbolising the uncertainty surrounding security and culture during wartime.
“We want to show the sculpture in a public space in a suspended state, symbolising its displaced fate,” Kadyrova explained.
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