State of Temporality
- Marianna Dzhulay
- Apr 20
- 2 min read
Een Staat van Tijdelijkheid · Стан тимчасовості
An exhibition of Ukrainian and Dutch female artists
Oude Raadhuis, Aalsmeer
Dorpsstraat 9, 1431 BC Aalsmeer
25 April to 7 June 2026
Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 2 PM to 5 PM
Opening: 25 April, 16:00
Curated by Mariana Dzhulai, Block A Gallery, Kyiv, Amsterdam
State of Temporality brings together Ukrainian and Dutch female artists whose works reflect on displacement caused by war, from the perspectives of those who flee and those who receive, witness, and live alongside displaced people.
At the centre of the exhibition is the personal story of curator Mariana Dzhulai, whose family fled russia's war against Ukraine. Through works in different media, this intimate experience opens onto a shared reality lived by millions forced to leave home in search of safety.
The exhibition reflects on trauma, empathy, loss, and adaptation. It asks what remains when familiar structures collapse, how one continues to live under the pressure of war, and whether safety can ever feel complete again, even after years in peaceful Europe.
At the same time, State of Temporality insists that the Ukrainian experience should not be seen only through victimhood. It also speaks through resilience, knowledge, and the capacity to endure. The world has changed, and war is no longer a distant exception. The language of permanent peace no longer fully describes the present. Adaptation today may also mean preparedness, protection, and collective defence.
In this sense, the experience of Ukrainians becomes not only a testimony of loss but also a source of knowledge. The exhibition invites European audiences to empathise, but also to consider what they might learn from those who have already been forced to live through war.
The works in the exhibition do not offer resolution. Instead, they attend to vulnerability, endurance, and the effort of remaining oneself in unfamiliar worlds. They speak to the challenge of preserving identity and memory while negotiating new cultural environments, and to the possibility of post-traumatic growth without reducing the reality of loss.
Featuring works by
EtchingRoom1, Marieke Greeve, Hanna Hrabarska, Anna Kakhiani, Alevtyna Kakhidze, Mariia Kulikovska, Ilse Oelbers, Marfa Vasilyeva
In collaboration with Kastanje, Dutch-Ukrainian Cultural Centre
Media partner: Ukrainian Diaspora NL
Food partner: Vesela Pani, Aalsmeer
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