Open World

Three years after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, a young boy who fled the country returns to his old neighborhood using a military-grade robotic dog as a remote presence device. From abroad, and through the eyes and body of the animal-like machine, he navigates the streets he grew up in; reconnects with family, friends, and neighbors who remained in the city; and encounters the traces of a life left behind, bearing witness to the persistence of everyday life amid devastation. 

Straddling video-game streaming and documentary, the video installation engages with the realities of youth displacement and the consequences of war experienced remotely. By transforming a device originally designed for warfare and destruction into a tool for connection, the artists reflect on how technological mediation shapes exile, memory, and relationships. At the same time, they reveal the lasting effects of war on individuals and the precarious possibilities for building community in the diaspora. 

Situated within a lineage of video-based works that examine the visual regimes of war, Open World questions what it means to return when return is no longer possible. The installation invites reflection on resilience and on the fragile acts of remembering and maintaining a sense of belonging across distance.

(Text written by TBA21 and used as wall label in the exhibition "Roman Khimei & Yarema Malashchuk. Pedagogías de guerra", MNTB, Madrid, 2026)