BODY, 2023
Directed, produced and edited by Daniela Rossi
BODY is an independently produced documentary short about Ukrainian contemporary artist Maria Kulikovska, who also happens to be an Internally Displaced Person in the wake of Russia's invasion of Crimea in 2014. Through the grueling process of creating life-size sculptures of herself, her clones, she interrogates the relationship between her body, her home, and her sense of identity. The film is an exploration of her artistic process and features Kulikovska’s own archival footage from 2013 - 2019, documenting the casting, sculpting and installation of her works during this time.
Kulikovska’s work is deeply personal, reflecting on stories that first captured my attention upon my first visit to Kyiv. Working between Stockholm and Kyiv while completing her Masters in Fine Art at Konstfack in 2019, I began interviewing Kulikovska in Stockholm, before visiting her home in Kyiv in both May and July that year.
More filming was planned for 2020, but the pandemic halted that, followed by the current war in Ukraine - so the film is somewhat frozen in time, a context that makes Kulikovskas work, and the stories she shares, ever more relevant.