Lia Dostlieva
Lia Dostlieva is an artist, cultural anthropologist, and essayist. Her art and research practice engage with the issues of collective trauma, Anthropocene, decolonial stories, agency and visibility of vulnerable groups. As an artist, she works across a wide range of media including photography, installations, textile sculptures, etc.
In Your Region, Even Mountains Are Fake
2023
Screen printing on textile, installation
Heavy industrialization and collectivization under Soviet rule not only took millions of lives but also severely disfigured the beautiful steppe of eastern Ukraine. Extensive mining marred the local landscape with slag heaps — towering piles of debris — clearly visible on the city horizon. To many inhabitants, these mounds appeared like hills or even small mountains in the distance, especially when squinting. Over time, these industrial scars came to be perceived with all the complexity and ambivalence of a regional symbol. Following the Russian occupation in 2014 of parts of the Donetsk oblast, the artificial, mountain-like heaps came to embody a lost homeland. In Your Region, Even Mountains Are Fake is an ironic and bitter reflection on colonial exploitation of the land, feelings of loss and belonging, and landscapes of memory.