Iana Stefanova: Ellipses- May, 9 2023 – 6.30 pm

Ellipses is an audio-visual work developed as a result of encountering, recording, and listening to memories of and reflections on migration experiences.

Between the end of 2017 and 2019, the artist encountered Belarusian and Ukrainian women in different cities of the Italian Campania region, who generously offered her their stories. The created mosaic of voices, based on these personal narrations and shaped by further conversations with the artist, as well as by the artist’s own biography, represents a space where many subjectivities intertwine. Ellipses invites an audience to listen to the intersubjectivity that develops, but also to go beyond the semantic: to the omissions and silences, hesitations and hints.

(This work was developed as a part of a practice-based PhD at the University of the Arts London, exploring the potential of listening practices to challenge the essentialising representations of gendered migration.)

Audio-visual installation: single screen, 2 audio channels

Italian, Russian, Ukrainian languages; captions in Italian or English, 56’, 2022

Iana Stefanova is a Berlin-based cultural worker, researcher, and artist. Iana has long-term experience in analogue and experimental film practices through engagement with independent film collectives. Her artistic and research practices centre on the concepts of narration, voice and language, and their relationship to (self)representation and the (ethical) encounter with each other. She has been newly exploring practices of listening that relate to these connections. Iana is currently a practice-based PhD candidate at the Screen School, LCC, University of the Arts London.