At the “Polataiko Project” exhibition Photo: Mykola Swarnyk
Mykola Swarnyk for NP-UN
Taras Polataiko came to Canada in 1989, and in 1991 he completed the MFA degree at the University of Saskatchewan. In October of 1992 he caught everybody’s attention by performing as a living statue in front of the Monument to Ray Hnatyshyn in Saskatchewan. He put himself on the pedestal with the script “in honour of those Ukrainians who did not become the Governor General”. Controversy caused by his performance, split public opinion and created much publicity for him.
Now he is considered a rising star in the international arena of modern art. He is a well-known performance and mixed media artist, and has proven himself in many areas of art – more or less provoking, but with evident artistry, talent and philosophy.
The opening of his exhibition “Polataiko Project” at the Barbara Edwards Contemporary art gallery, on February 9, attracted a considerable number of the Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian visitors.
Barbara Edwards introduced The Polataiko Project which will eventually move into an online format and includes Polataiko’s War. 11 Portraits, a moving series of photographs of wounded soldiers completed in 2014, soon after he left a faculty position at the University of Lethbridge in southern Alberta and returned to Ukraine. The images, shot in a military hospital in Kyiv by photographer Pavlo Terekhov, working in collaboration with Polataiko, show no wounds or scars. We gaze at the solemn, haunted faces of soldiers, their heads resting gently against pillows, from the vantage point of a nurse, a mother or maybe an angel.
Images like these make the horror of war frighteningly real. As I turn from my computer screen to find solace watching the peaceful, sunlit street outside my home, the privilege of living in a country that has never experienced a major war on its soil fills me with gratitude. But in Ukraine, as a bitter winter takes hold, Russia is targeting energy infrastructure with missile and drone strikes, leaving millions of civilians without power, huddled around whatever heat and light they can find. After centuries of repression and foreign occupations, I hope against hope, historical precedent and my family’s experience that this invasion, once repelled, will be the last.
The exhibition was organised in support of BCU Foundation initiative ASSIST – Advanced Surgical Skills & Implants for Skeletal Trauma. The opening contained a presentation made by the young surgeon Markian Pahuta, who volunteered as a liaison between the Ukrainian surgeons and the supply and consultation team in Canada. Canadian specialists are helping the Ukrainians choose and apply more modern techniques of surgery, than those presently used in Ukraine. In order to make this possible, Canadians are finding, collecting, paying and sending to Ukraine the needed surgical parts and pieces to perform operations on the wounded soldiers and civilians.
Also present was Maryna Polataiko, Taras Polataiko`s daughter, who had reproductions of her fathers works on sale.
The exhibition was presented in collaboration with the Danyliw Foundation’s #FreedomHeartUkraine initiative, Barbara Edwards Contemporary and curator Wayne Baerwaldt. With special thanks to Scotts Shields Architects.
This article is written under the Local Journalism Initiative agreement
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