The screening at SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA consisted of two moving image works, Here and now, and after? by İz Öztat and The District by Mykola Ridnyi. Both artists use performative strategies—one puppetry, the other a time-traveling walk—to explore the tensions between individual agency and systemic violence of repression and warfare. 

The screening was followed by a conversation with the artists, moderated by Rike Frank and Philicia Kraatz

The District, Mykola Ridnyi, 2023 (20min)
In 2022, the neighborhood of Northern Saltivka in Kharkiv, Ukraine became a frontline of the Russian invasion, suffering severe destruction. A walk through this “ghost district” traces a tenuous coexistence of past and present, external and internal landscapes, facts and memories. A voiceover accompanies the walk, recalling the artist’s childhood and youth in places that no longer exist.

Here and now, and after?, İz Öztat, 2025 (26min)
Here and now, and after? is a puppet play for camera by İz Öztat that negotiates artistic agency, accountability, and the self’s relation to the Other. The video draws on Kasperle theater—a centuries-old German-language puppetry tradition—as a politically engaged pedagogical form, while referring to the Faustian pact as a literary motif. Imbued with cultural associations and projections, ideologies and stereotypes, a collection of puppets are brought to life to enact and reflect on the present, the figure of the artist and their contractual obligations to the state. The play is structured around three contracts: between Faust and the devil, the artist and the state, and the negotiation of erotic power-play. As agreements are reached by some puppets, others defy authority, demanding justice on their own terms.

Location: SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA
Time: 5 November, 8–9.30 PM
Language: English

Tickets