Identities are circumstantial and multiple, constantly changing, mutating, solid and fluid, inactive and active. Yet identity is something defined, a lot of times not by oneself. Identities are segregated and dominated. Identities are objects of violence at home and in society. Identities are in between history and memory. Identities are in post-memory. Identities are in family structure and in social, economic and political systems. Identities migrate. Identities are culture, and identities are nature.

Now, in crisis, identity becomes a paradox, a resource of our connections—to ourselves and each other—locating freedom in it. We carry our resources through times of heroes and in the stories, which aren’t driven by conflict. Our stories are multivocal and multilocal. They are about care, knowledge-carrying, and healing.  The stories with non-linear timelines, without people and without nations. Nonetheless, uniting, destroying dams, and thus inhabiting different temporalities in the present time for better futures.

The group show “Identity Paradox” includes artworks by artists Dovilė Aleksaitė, Gleb Amankulov, Pille-Riin Jaik, and Dalea Kovačec. The exhibition reflects the experiences during the one-week residency in Užice, Serbia, in July 2023.

Artists

Dovilė Aleksaitė is a Lithuanian artist, working with video and performance. Aleksaite’s works explore the questions of anthropocentric worldview, notions of nature and emotions. In late 2020, she co-founded the OKTA collective, where the focus is on artistic research projects and curation.
Aleksaitė's works were presented in group exhibitions at the Akademie der Künste Berlin, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Silent Green Berlin and New York German House among others. She has been studying Art and Media at UdK Berlin, and currently lives and works in Berlin.

Gleb Amankulov (born 1988, Minsk, Belarus) is an artist currently based in Vienna. He works with sculpture, installation, photography and performance. In his practice he reflects upon the economy of art production, distribution of power and notions of identity. He’s also interested in displaying, underlining and challenging formal, contextual and historical aspects of used / found / borrowed objects as well as reflecting the context and space they appear in. He completed his degree at the Belarusian State Academy of Arts in Minsk and at Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in sculpture and spatial strategies class by Prof. Monica Bonvicini and Prof. Iman Issa. He participated in various group exhibitions, his works have been shown at Kunsthalle Wien, Leopold Museum, WAF Galerie, TWQ Wien, Hoast, EFES42, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna etc.

Pille­-Riin Jaik (born 1991 in Tallinn, Estonia) is a Vienna based interdisciplinary artist working with video/performance as well as with photography and installation. She has a Bachelor of Photography from the Estonian Academy of Fine Arts (2015) and a Masters from Art and Digital Media at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (2020). Currently she is studying in a PhD in Practice program in Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and is a member of Golden Pixel Cooperative. Her artistic work is focused on text, plants, textile, storytelling, surplus and waste materials/thoughts in feminist and class aware discourse. 
Recently she has also been part of group exhibitions at Hobusepea Gallery in Tallinn, LLLLLL, PFERD, Flucc, xE, Exhibit, AG18, Ausßenstelle Kunst, 21Haus in Vienna and has had this year a solo exhibition ‘Unbound’ in Prevenhuberhaus in Weyer.

Dalea Kovačec (born in 1993 in Ptuj, Slovenia) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, where she also pursued her MFA in painting. During her graduate studies, she attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw as part of a study exchange (2014/15). She received an award for a series of works in various media from the University of Ljubljana’s Academy of Fine Arts and Design in 2018 and was nominated for the OHO Award in 2021.
Her work revolves around the exploration of human perception through different media and is focused on the theme of memory, especially on the relationship between memory and medium in different social contexts. She likes to involve children and the local community in her projects and regularly collaborates with experts from various fields of expertise.