Overview
- The Kyjiw‑Biennale exhibition 'A Bird That Cannot Fly' opened at KW Institute in Berlin on Wednesday, June 10, and will run through 13 September as a traveling edition of the 2026 Biennale.
- Curator Vasyl Cherepanyn framed the show in his opening remarks by noting that Russia’s campaign in Ukraine has now lasted longer than the German–Soviet war, positioning the exhibition as a reflection on prolonged catastrophe.
- Key works stage historical layering and surreal escapes: Lesia Vasylchenko’s large video weaves footage from 1918–2025 into a hallucinatory sky, Dana Kavelina’s stop‑motion 'Grey Earth' offers dreamlike reprieves, and Assaf Gruber’s two‑part video renders the Middle East conflict as an ambiguous narrative.
- The presentation assembles artists from Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Mediterranean whose practices use abstraction, archives and material traces to resist simple documentary or propagandistic readings of conflict.
- Organizers have built an active public program of concerts, talks and performances and critics say Cherepanyn’s politically attentive, technoid curatorial stance at KW offers a clear preview of how he may approach the upcoming Berlin Biennale.