Camouflage

wood, textile / 2024

Exploring the interconnection of human and non-human agents, as well as the intertwining and inextricable link between the personal and the political, is the central motif of artistic practice by Iryna Loskot. In the artwork "Camouflage," the artist addresses the post-traumatic integration of human beings and nature during the war. The artwork features a piece of camouflage fabric appearing on the bark. Bark as a material acts here both as a symbol of safety/care and a memory object. Iryna Loskot found the bark in her childhood village in the Sumy region, now a frontline territory, where an intensive process of adaptation to warfare is taking place, involving both humans and nature.

The bark is a tree's protective tissue, shielding the plant from damage and keeping the tree safe. A nearly invisible piece of camouflage fabric embedded in the bark reveals the mutational symbiosis between humans and non-humans drawn into this war. However, who provides safety to whom: the people who are restoring the nature destroyed by war? Or does nature provide a double layer of camouflage to the soldiers?

A piece of camouflage fabric reminds us that apart from countless human casualties, war also destroys nature. Ukrainian researcher Svitlana Matviyenko characterised this process as a "terror environment," emphasising that today any terror is ecological, turning the living body into a hostage of its own ecosystems.

Performance is a traditional practice in Iryna Loskot's art. In this sculptural composition, performative gestures are inherent in hidden traces-the search for bark, the transport from Sumy, and the organisation of mutation through a piece of camouflage fabric. All these traces reveal the interdependence imposed by the war.