Ukraine 2026

Title: Security Guarantees
Commissioner: Tetyana Berezhna, Deputy Prime Minister for Humanitarian policy of Ukraine – Minister of Culture of Ukraine
Curators: Ksenia Malykh and Leonid Marushchak
Exhibitor: Zhanna Kadyrova

The Ukrainian Pavilion project addresses the issue of unfulfilled security guarantees following Ukraine’s decision to relinquish its nuclear arsenal in 1996, after the signing of the “Budapest Memorandum” in 1994. Under this political agreement with the United States, the United Kingdom and the Russian Federation, Ukraine joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons as a non-nuclear-weapon state in exchange for security assurances. The project reflects on the fragility of peace and the resilience of Ukrainian society.

The project centres on Zhanna Kadyrova’s sculpture “The Origami Deer”, originally installed in 2019 in Yuvileyniy Park in Pokrovsk, in the Donetsk region, on the site of a dismantled Soviet Su-7 aircraft previously used as a carrier of nuclear weapons. The installation was realised with the executive and technical support of Denys Ruban. While rooted in the tradition of park sculpture, the work adopts a contemporary form.

Based on a folded paper model, the sculpture evokes the act of translation from a fragile material into a permanent structure. As noted by the artist, the work introduces a metaphor linked to the “Budapest Memorandum”: just as its guarantees were recorded on paper, the sculpture itself originates from paper.

Although cast on a fixed pedestal and not intended for relocation, the sculpture was evacuated in 2024 as the front line approached the city. The operation was carried out by the artist in collaboration with the NGO Museum Open for Renovation, a group of specialists, and municipal workers from Pokrovsk, with the involvement of historian and co-curator Leonid Marushchak.