This project is about police torture, a widespread practice in contemporary Ukraine. One could also say that this project is about the body, as something personal (unalienated), something private (an object of exchange), and as something that exists for the public good (entrusted to uniformed professionals). The project consists of a set of souvenir plates printed with drawings of police tortures and the text of the email dialogue between Yekaterina Mishchenko and Nikita Kadan.
The project includes posters with the same drawings and correspondence fragments, which were put up in public space. The choice of forms and visual means is connected with the absence of any clear visual documentation of torture procedures, with their specific ‘invisibility’. The didactic character of these drawings addresses the collective responsibility of all those who know and remain silent, bearing the guilt for what goes on ‘in the shadows’. These instructions have been executed in the style of the « Popular Medical Dictionary » of the Soviet era, where one could often find illustrations of patient-characters with serene facial expressions, even though they are undergoing extremely painful procedures. ‘The doctor knows what he is doing. It’s all for our own good’. nikitakadan.com