Oksana Kazmina

The backstage histories.

Daily routine, festive rituals and other bodily practices of some unfitted groups of Ukrainians. Incompetent and loose field study, Kyiv, Ukraine, 2014-2020.

During my Saari Home Residency, I will work on my project, The backstage histories and the themes of intersectional feminism, posthumanism, archives, politics of memory, hierarchies, vulnerable groups, violence.

My residency period enables me to work on the project, share it with the other fellows, exchange ideas about possible scenarios of living, loving and caring. Also, while editing/working on the project, I draw sketches/write notes/walk a lot.  Otherwise, I am primarily working with the computer.

Oksana Kazmina, Ukrainian documentary film-maker, media artist and performer.

Oksana graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at Ivan Franko Lviv National University, the Faculty of TV-Directing at Karpenko-Kary Kyiv National Theater, Film and Television University, and Moving Academy for Performing Arts – Amsterdam. Oksana was also a Visiting Assistant Professor of Film Studies at Wesleyan University, USA, in 2016. Now Oksana teaches the basics of video narration at Kyiv Academy of Media Arts, Kyiv, Ukraine.

Since 2016 Oksana has been working on her debut feature Underwater. Underwater is a long term exploration of everyday practices of dealing with the patriarchy. It registers different aspects of life and work of three Ukrainian female-identified artists AntiGonna (Kyiv-Vinnytsia- Odesa), Masha Pronina (Donetsk-Mariupol) and Ksenia Platanoiva (Zaporizhzhia)

Underwater is inspired by another project of Oksana, The backstage histories. Daily routine, festive rituals and other bodily practices of some unfitted groups of Ukrainians. Incompetent and loose field study, Kyiv, Ukraine, 2014-2020.

These two projects map Oksana’s main interests and practices starting from 2014, they interconnect and grow horizontally as different collaborations between its participants arise. In this way, these fluid projects expand and mutate over time giving rise to other projects and practices, such as artistic collective OKCAHAS (together with AntiGonna) and interdisciplinary project Body Practices (together with Anatoliy Bielov).

OKCAHAS explores different aspects of female sexuality and pleasure. Film Zarosli, which the collective produced, has participated in festivals Pornfilmfestival Berlin, Tel Aviv Queer Film Festival, Antwerp Queer Festival and others.

Besides, recently Oksana has released the first album of her and Vasyl’ Tkachenko’s music project Serviz Propav. Available on SoundCloud.