Andrea Pagnes in conversation with Yaryna Shumska

This conversation with Ukrainian artist Yaryna Shumska takes place against the backdrop of Russia’s ongoing full-scale invasion, where performance becomes both an act of survival and a form of testimony. Shumska reflects on how war alters the conditions of art-making: bodies freeze and fracture under trauma, yet through movement, they rediscover balance, resilience and the possibility of connection. Memory, once linear, becomes fractured and haunted, while identity – especially Ukrainian identity – is reclaimed as embodied resistance against erasure and propaganda. Shumska discusses performance not as spectacle or heroism but as collective witnessing – a mindful presence, delicate yet intense. Rooted in ancestral stories, rituals and gestures, her work opposes the commodification of suffering and promotes an ethic of care. In her collaboration, teaching and international exchange, she positions performance as a porous practice of dialogue across borders, times and wounds. Through this, Shumska demonstrates how the performing body in wartime can endure, archive, testify and affirm life amidst destruction.