Lia Dostlieva (Лія Достлєва), b. Donetsk, Ukraine. Artist, cultural anthropologist, essayist.
Her art and research practice engaged with the issues of collective trauma, Anthropocene, decolonial stories, and agency and visibility of vulnerable groups. As an artist, she works across a wide range of media including photography, installations, textile sculptures, etc.
Education:
Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, Netherlands, 2022/23
Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, MA, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland, 2017/19
Selected exhibitions:
ongoing
60th La Biennale di Venezia, the National Pavilion of Ukraine, Venice, Italy (till 24.11.2024)
Difficult Pasts. Connected Worlds, Tallinn Art Hall, Tallinn, Estonia (till 20.10.2024)
Heart of Earth, Ukraine House in Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark (till 24.11.2024)
2024
Other Geografies, Other Stories, Malta Art Biennale, Fort St.Elmo, Valletta, Malta
‘My oma’, Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Comfort Work, Galeria Miejska Arsenał, Poznań, Poland (personal, with Andrii Dostliev)
United Nations, Galeria Wy, Łódż, Poland
‘Our Years, Our Words, Our Losses, Our Searches, Our Us’, Jam Factory Art Center, Lviv, Ukraine
Female resistance in Crimea, Crimea Platform, Kyiv, Ukraine
‘Unseen force’, National Center “Ukrainian House”, Kyiv, Ukraine
2023
‘Immer wieder Aufbruch!’, Kolumba Museum, Cologne, Germany
‘Chronic desire—Sete cronică’, Timișoara 2023 European Capital of Culture, Palatul Ştefania, Timișoara, Romania
14th Kaunas Biennial: Long-distance Friendships, Kaunas Central Post Office, Kaunas, Lithuania
10th Young Triennale: Consolidation, Center of Polish Sculpture, Orońsko, Poland (curatorial; with Andrii Dostliev and Stanisław Malecki)
Open Studios, Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, Netherlands
UKRAINE! UNMUTED, Galeria Biała, Lublin, Poland
‘Future is now’, Gerhart-Hauptmann-Haus, Düsseldorf, Germany
‘Let them Weave! Contemporary Polish Sewn Sculpture’, Znaki Czasu. Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej, Toruń, Poland
‘Durch die Landschaft gehen’ (personal, with Andrii Dostliev), Art-Galerie Siegen, Siegen, Germany
‘The Ties that Bind’, Duża Scena, Poznań, Poland
‘Home. Perspectives’, Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, UK
‘Journey to the center of the Earth’, BWA Wrocław Główny, Wroclaw, Poland
‘Riding Towards the Sunset’ (personal, with Andrii Dostliev), Barbara Baryżewska Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
‘Heart of the Earth’, Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv, Ukraine
‘Give Me Tomorrow’, John and Maggie Mitchell Art Gallery, Edmonton, Canada
2022
‘Emplotment’, Ludwig Museum, Budapest, Hungary
‘Soviet Anthropocene 1933’ (personal), CK Zamek, Poznan, Poland
‘(My) Home’, National Museum of Art, Chișinău, Moldova
‘Difficult Pasts. Connected Worlds’, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius, Lithuania
‘Licking War Wounds’ (personal, with Andrii Dostliev), Tbilisi Photography and Multimedia Museum, Tbilisi, Sakartvelo
Triennale of Contemporary Ukrainian Art ‘Ukrainian Cross-Section 2022. UKRAINE! UNMUTED’, Central post office, Kaunas, Lithuania
‘Material Nation’, Urania, Berlin, Germany
‘Occupation’ (personal, with Andrii Dostliev), Tabačka Gallery, Košice, Slovakia
‘Ukraine — The Path To Freedom’, Akerk, Groningen, the Netherlands
‘Let them Weave! Contemporary Polish Sewn Sculpture’, Studio Cannaregio, Venice, Italy
‘The Cockerel with Black Wings’, das weisse haus, Vienna, Austria
‘No Such Thing as an Innocent Eye’, Ośrodek Sztuki Lescer, Zalesie Górne, Poland
‘Zachmurzenie’, Henryk Fundacja, Cracow, Poland
‘Melioracija’, Chamber of Agriculture, Kaunas, Lithuania
‘State of Emergency’, State Art Gallery, Sopot, Poland
‘Black on Prussian Blue’ (personal, with Andrii Dostliev), Malta festival, Poznań, Poland
2021
‘I still feel sorry when I throw away food…’ (personal, with Andrii Dostliev), Odesa National Art Museum, Odesa, Ukraine
‘Lost, dead, and pink’ (personal, with Andrii Dostliev), Gerhart-Hauptmann-Haus, Düsseldorf, Germany
‘Gray Mandorla Manifest’, Gray Mandorla Studio, Poznań, Poland
Photobook Week Aarhus, Godsbanen, Aarhus, Denmark
‘Odkształcenie / Дэфармацыя / Unlearning’, Domie, Poznań, Poland
‘Inscriptions of Identity. Belonging. Difference. Gesture.’, Biuro Wystaw, Warsaw, Poland
‘Licking War Wounds’ (personal, with Andrii Dostliev), Izolyatsia, Soledar, Ukraine
‘Ukraine. A different angle on neighborhood’, MCK, Cracow, Poland
III textile biennial, Poznań, Poland
‘WOLNE MIEJSCE’, Łódź Czterech Kultur, Łódź, Poland
‘Imaginary Architecture for Imaginary Communities’, Centrala, Poznań, Poland
‘Sensitivity. Contemporary Ukrainian photography’, Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv, Ukraine
‘Give us this day…’, Galeria Arsenal, Białystok, Poland
‘Shame shouldn’t be a symptom’, Improper Walls, Vienna, Austria
‘Black on Prussian Blue’ (personal, with Andrii Dostliev), Shcherbenko Art Centre, Kyiv, Ukraine
2020
‘Difficult Pasts. Connected Worlds’, Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga, Latvia
‘Licking War Wounds’ (personal, with Andrii Dostliev), Centrala, Poznań, Poland
Futures Talents 2020, online
‘Dealing with Memory’, Frappant Gallery, Hamburg, Germany
‘Brüdershaft’, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Ukraine
‘I still feel sorry when I throw away food…’ (personal, with Andrii Dostliev), Ukraiński Dom, Warsaw, Poland
2019
I Feminnale of Contemporary Art, National Museum of Fine Arts, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
‘An unduly restrictive view of salvation (Vinnytsia limbo)’ (personal, with Andrii Dostliev), Dymchuk gallery, Kyiv, Ukraine
‘Rituals of transition’. The IV Triennal of Ukrainian Art, Lviv, Ukraine
‘Fairy Castles of Donetsk’ (personal, with Andrii Dostliev), 20square7, Berlin, Germany
‘I still feel sorry when I throw away food…’ (personal, with Andrii Dostliev), European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany
‘I still feel sorry when I throw away food…’ (personal, with Andrii Dostliev), The Menorah center, Dnipro, Ukraine
MUHi Young Ukrainian Artists, Taras Shevchenko Museum, Kyiv, Ukraine
II Biennale of Young Art, Kharkiv, Ukraine
‘Displaced’, Izolyatsia, Hybrid Contemporary Art Fair, Madrid, Spain
‘Licking War Wounds’ (personal, with Andrii Dostliev) iZone, Kyiv, Ukraine
‘Dark’, Izolyatsia, Kyiv, Ukraine (personal)
2018
Warsaw Photo Days 2018, Sinfonia Varsovia, Warsaw, Poland
‘Conscious Sensation’, Mystetskyi Arsenal — Mala Gallery, Kyiv, Ukraine
UNSEEN Dummy Award 2018 shortlist, Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
‘Instant Time’, Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv, Ukraine
‘I Lied in Visa Center’, Gallleriapiù, Bologna, Italy
2017
The Festival of Young Ukrainian Artists, Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv, Ukraine
‘Tam, gdzie teraz’, Labirynt Gallery, Lublin, Poland
‘Reconstruction of Memory’, DOX, Prague, Czech Republic
Curatorial:
2023 — 10th Young Triennale: Consolidation, (with Stanislaw Malecki and Andrii Dostliev), Centre of Polish Sculpture, Oronsko, Poland
2021 — project of the Ukrainian national pavilion for Venice Biennale, shortlist
2020/21 — guest curator at Izolyatsia foundation, Kyiv, Ukraine
2016/17 — ‘Reconstruction of Memory‘ (with Andrii Dostliev) Izolyatsia foundation, Kyiv, Ukraine and DOX, Prague, Czech Republic
Research projects:
(Dis)solutions: mapping post-imperial/postcolonial/decolonial debates in culture and civil society in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Baltic States, researcher, curator, Goethe-Institut Ukraine, 2023 – 2025
Festivalisation of values. Axio-normativity of Music Festivals, researcher (art based research methods), UAM, Poznan, Poland, 2019 – 2022
Books:
‘In Pieces’, Sophia Bulgakova, Lia Dostlieva, Ola Lanko, Katia Motyleva, Kateryna Snizhko; Growing Pains, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2023
A. Konarzewska, S. Schahadat, N. Weller (editors), „ALLES IST TEURER ALS UKRAINISCHES LEBEN“
Texte über Westplaining und den Krieg, edition.fotoTAPETA_Flugschrift, Berlin, Germany, 2023
Maria van der Togt, 11111 &23%#719 (editors), „Dispatches from Ukraine: Tactical Media Reflections and Responses“, Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2022
‘Uwierz w festiwal’, Książka i Prasa, Warsaw, Poland, 2022
Andrii Dostliev, Lia Dostlieva (editors), ‘Blind Spots, Dead Pixels’, self-published, 2022
‘Licking War Wounds’, Lia Dostlieva, Andrii Dostliev, 89books, Palermo, Italy, 2022
‘An unduly restrictive view of salvation (Vinnytsia Limbo)’, Andrii Dostliev, Lia Dostlieva, self-published, 2020
‘I still feel sorry when I throw away food – Grandma used to tell me stories about the Holodomor’, Lia Dostlieva, Andrii Dostliev, introduction by Serhiy Zhadan, Rodovid, Kyiv, Ukraine, 2019
‘Abobal->Yabobal’, child book, (as an illustrator, photographer and author of the creatures) Lia Dostlieva, Dmytro Kuziakin, Zakenty Horobiov, Talent publishing house, Kharkiv, Ukraine, 2018
Scholarships and residencies:
2024 — ArtsLink International Fellowships 2024, USA
2022/23 — Jan van Eyck Academie AIR Programme, Maastricht, Netherlands
2022 — Modernism for Future AIR, Kaunas, Lithuania
2022 — Artist-In-Residence Programme, CK Zamek, Poznan, Poland
2022 — Gaude Polonia Scholarship Programme for Foreign Cultural Professionals, Warsaw, Poland
2020 — “Kultura w Sieci” program, Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Poland
2019 — Visiting Fellow, Ukraine in European Dialogue, Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna, Austria
2017 — Granica, Polish-Ukrainian residency project, Mariupol, Ukraine, Poznan, Poland
2014 — Gaude Polonia Scholarship Programme for Foreign Cultural Professionals, Poznan, Poland