Standard Deviation × Remote Control bring us directly to Ukraine, where people continue to resist Russia’s brutal full-scale war of aggression. Their joint project RIDNE (Рідне, Ukrainian for ‘native/dear’) is a series of videos shot over 2022 and 2023 in various locations in the country. The videos, shot in first-person perspective, were set to music by musicians who are closely connected to the respective place shown in each video, whether it is their own hometown, a personal place of solace, or a place that symbolises something of their own experience of war. In the first part of RIDNE, tofudj walks through the ghostly darkness of the city of Kyiv, blacked-out by Russian bombing, while Diana Azzuz sets scenes on the border to Poland to music, reflecting on experiences of her own flight. Mykolaiv native bsw reimagines a walk through the ravaged streets of his city as a quest-like adventure. Odesa’s Undo Despot scores familiar city scenes including her usual beach spot, which no longer feels the same, and Kharkiv-based artist Panghoud guides us through the new realities of his hometown turned battleground.

Following the screenings will be a presentation of live AV works conceived by Borshch magazine co-founder Mariana Berezovska, under a wider project Rybachka. On the first evening, musician Katarina Gryvul collaborates with Peruvian multimedia artist Alex Guevara. The title Rybachka (Рибачка, Ukrainian for ‘the fisherman’s wife’) is borrowed from the poem of the same name by Lina Kostenko, one of Ukraine's most important poets. In it, Kostenko depicts a vivid expression of the state of having to endure persistent uncertainty, between fear and hope, as people in situations of war, crisis, and flight must endure time and again. As an ongoing project, Rybachka aims to bring together artists from different backgrounds in order to deconstruct pain together, to raise awareness of the less obvious consequences of war and violent conflicts, and to search for ways of healing through artistic means.