The Feminist Geopolitics of Donbas: The Role of Art in Challenging Bordering

Abstract:Ukrainian art provides unique examples of challenging bordering policies in the geopolitical context of the war in Donbas. Employing critical borders studies and the perspective of feminist geopolitics, this paper looks at borders beyond territories, including discursive landscapes of power and intersectionality. It focuses on the role of art in post-Maidan Ukraine as a response to political violence and bordering, and the relations between art and bordering work in nongovernment-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine. It argues that feminist art, through practices of "seeing as a border," brings a more intimate geopolitical perspective to audiences' understandings of the lived experiences of civilians residing in the nongovernment territories of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Through analysis of Alevtina Kakhidze and Maria Kulikovska's art, the research demonstrates how the geographical gaze towards art and its role in dis-bordering add to the understanding of space and resistance.