Motherland
Olga Ganzha (Netherlands)
Veronika Babayan (Netherlands)
Tatevik Ghukasyan (Russia)
masharu (Netherlands)
Curator: Susanna Gyulamian
The exhibition explores the theme of “Motherland” through various interpretations such as Mother Earth, Great Mother, motherhood, heroic mother, homeland, patriotism, citizenship, and nationality. It is a collaborative international project by Veronika Babayan, Olga Ganzha, Tatevik Ghukasyan, and masharu.
The exhibition encourages a critical response to patriarchal pressures in Armenia that expect women and young girls to accept their roles as reproductive instruments, raising sons who will eventually grow up to become soldiers. In this society, women growing up are continuously reminded that their mission is to conceive and give birth to as many Armenian boys as possible. Resistance to this dominant ideology may be perceived as unpatriotic or a refusal to serve the nation’s future.
Although the fear of extinction among Armenians is often justified, women cannot accept that their primary, or even sole, purpose is considered to be gender-selective reproduction. In today’s world, women are no longer defined or validated by their ability to give birth to healthy boys.
Two early feminist authors, Adrienne Rich and Sarah Ruddick, have provided radical views on the historical construction of motherhood (1972-1996). Rich praises motherhood as a means of engaging in anti-war activism, while Ruddick advocates for motherhood as a politics of peace.
Certain discourses link women specifically to the environment due to their traditional social roles as nurturers and caregivers. Some ecofeminist scholars argue that the connection of women to nature is not due to their being female or “feminine,” but because, like nature, they are oppressed by predominantly male forces. Marginalization is evident in gendered language used to describe nature, such as Mother Earth or Mother Nature, and in the language used to describe women. Ecofeminists who think this way believe that these connections highlight socially attributed values associated with “femininity,” such as nurturing, which both women and nature share.
In the Soviet Union context, Mother -Motherland statues, studied by Olga Ganzha in Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, and Armenia, use contemporary representations of “Great Mothers,” associated with fertility, birth, life, and protection. The imagery of Mother Earth as a symbol of unity also recalls soldiers who died defending the “earth” and symbolizes “patriotism” with the entire discourse of power embedded in it, resonating with wars, self-sacrifice, and sanctified violence.
Veronika Babayan uses traditional women’s practices to explore the concept of transgenerational trauma and understand how maternal care functions as a tool for shaping a child’s identity. Her work uses the tradition of making sour lavash as a vessel to circulate evidence of destroyed transgenerational trauma beyond the realm of territory, language, and citizenship.
Based on her research, masharu began to think about Earth as a transient element in the construction of a “world citizen” identity. Following ancient practices, masharu eats the soil of the countries he visits as a means to connect himself with different countries. In a sense, by consuming the edible soils of many countries, he enriches his biological and spiritual composition on the path to becoming a “world citizen.” Thus, the approach of the “Museum of Edible Earth” is connected to a more general narrative of Mother Earth, providing access to all individuals without discrimination.
Tatevik Ghukasyan investigates the collective trauma of the Armenian Genocide through different relationships with Earth—”having land” versus “belonging to the Earth.” While traumatic experience is rooted in the pain of “lost land” and longing for it, the sense of connection to the Earth, the artist believes, can instead become a healing and reconciling tool. Tatevik recounts her journey to Turkey, where she performed a ritual of reuniting with the Earth and reconciling with traumatic events by planting trees and commemorating the victims.
In the context of intercultural dialogues, the artists explore the symbolism of Earth (Land), extending it between the opposing ideas of Motherland and Mother Earth, one for a few and the other for many. The artists question what it means to relate to and care for the Earth in response to the current political climate of ecological crisis and rising nationalism. They then examine the gender of the Earth, relating it to non-patriarchal structures versus exploitation in the capitalist system.
Olga Ganzha (Volgograd, 1981) is a Russian multimedia artist currently living and working in the Netherlands. She holds a Master’s degree in Language and Literature from Volgograd State University (Russia) and a Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design from the St. Joost Art Academy (Netherlands). Olga now works on independent projects, navigating the boundary between design and art. Her work often seeks balance by linking unrelated elements or different domain elements through an interdisciplinary approach, ritualizing personal memories of history and culture in “artistic” forms.
Olga Ganzha has been a resident artist multiple times and has participated in numerous exhibitions and collaborative projects across Europe, Africa, and former Soviet countries.
www.olgaganzha.nl
Veronika Babayan (Munich, 1994) is an artist, writer, and teacher whose work emerges between Armenia and the Netherlands. She employs a meta-autobiographical approach to study pedagogical types that influence the continuous production of national identity. Addressing motherhood, she works with collective memories to provide alternative explanations compared to widely accepted narratives. By using traditional women’s practices, she highlights the role of feminism in challenging hegemonic authority in patriotic memory. Veronika uncovers common elements, symbols, and signs in conflicting histories, revealing how they might transcend nationalist narratives and create spaces for transnational belonging. Veronika Babayan studied at the Yerevan State Academy of Fine Arts, followed by Willem de Kooning Academy (Rotterdam) and obtained her Master’s degree at Sandberg Institute (Amsterdam) in 2020. She has been a visiting lecturer in Critical Studies at Willem de Kooning Academy and is currently a coordinator of public programs at the Melle Art Institute (Rotterdam). She is working on the publication of her thesis, “Dear Mother: Fluid Mechanisms of Belonging.”
www.veronikababayan.com
Dr. masharu (Moscow, 1984) is a creative with a mathematical background. His projects merge scientific research with personal experience and cultural practice. In 2011, masharu earned his PhD in Mathematical Analysis of Images from Eindhoven University of Technology and completed the Photography Academy of Amsterdam. From 2013-2014, he was a resident at Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunst (Amsterdam). In 2018, he was an associate artist at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS-KNAW). Masharu’s work has been exhibited and published in Australia, Austria, China, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Guatemala, Indonesia, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Netherlands, Nigeria, Portugal, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Suriname, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and the United States, in venues and events such as the African Artists Foundation in Lagos, Spanish Cultural Center in Guatemala City, Design Week Eindhoven, Reditex Gallery (Paramaribo), Jakarta Contemporary Ceramic Biennale (Jakarta), European Ceramic Centre (Oisterwijk), Sustainica in Düsseldorf, Dutch Transnational Festival (Amsterdam), Moscow Contemporary Art Biennale, and Bilbao Maritime Museum.
www.masharu.nl
In 2021, masharu’s “Museum of Edible Earth” project received support from Creative Industries Fund NL, Tijl Fonds, and Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds.
www.museumofedible.earth
The artist’s practice is supported by the Mondriaan Fund.
Tatevik Ghukasyan (Yerevan, 1984) is an artist, facilitator, embodiment therapist, and coach with a background in human rights and peacebuilding. Born in Armenia and moved to Russia with her family at the age of nine, Tatevik grew up in Moscow and received a Master’s degree in Linguistics and Intercultural Communication, later studying Social Philosophy at the Russian State University for the Humanities. Among other roles, she has taught at universities, coordinated educational, cultural, and peacebuilding projects, and worked with teams and communities on human rights, deep ecology, and embodied conflict resolution. Tatevik is a co-founder of the “On the Edge” project, editor of the documentary book “It Is Possible to Know: Stories of a War” and the film “Immersion Sounds.”
https://refugee.ru/…/kazhdyj-molchit-o-svoem-istorii…/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37uDKMfqSRs
The exhibition is organized within the framework of the international projects of the “Laboratory of Art and Cultural Studies.”
On September 18, the exhibition is open for visiting from 17:00 to 19:30.
On September 22, from 17:00 to 20:00, there will be a meeting with the artists and a reception.
The working hours of the Contemporary Art Museum of Yerevan are from 11:00 to 18:00.
