DARIA GNATCHENKO
Daria Gnatchenko is a Paris-based artist and curator currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Ecology of Arts and Media at Université Paris 8. Her practice spans digital media — photography, video, 3D graphics — as well as exhibition-making and writing.

Daria’s work explores ecology, posthuman perspectives, and the “hacking” of habitual notions of the human in the world. Recent projects focus on the idea of connection and coexistence — between people, nature, technology, animals — and on states of fluidity in identity and gender. She often returns to the theme of loneliness, not only as a painful condition but also as a fundamental and even generative aspect of human existence.

Her recent research examines installations that incorporate earth as a medium and the concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk, using these approaches to envision posthumanist worlds and reflect on the temporalities of catastrophe and the end of the Anthropocene.

Her method combines research and visual experimentation, weaving personal experience into contemporary philosophical and cultural discourses. Through this approach, Daria seeks to create spaces where fragile yet resilient forms of life and thought can emerge.

For all inquiries, please contact via email or Instagram.

Email
Instagram

CURATORIAL PROJECTS

ART WORKS

PHOGRAPHY / VIDEO

Spring Cannot Be Cancelled

2025
EXHIBITION MANIFESTO

Spring is not just a season—it symbolizes transition. It is inevitable, even when winter seems endless. While it doesn't arrive on schedule, it emerges through resistance, rupture, and tension. This pivotal moment births a new system—fluid, chaotic, and beyond control. The fragile yet swift process lies at the heart of Spring Cannot Be Cancelled.

The project’s title refers to the book Spring Cannot Be Cancelled: David Hockney in Normandy, in which artist David Hockney observes spring breaking through the grey of the French winter. It serves as a reminder that change is inevitable. It is already unfolding, even if we aren't prepared to acknowledge it.

At the core of the exhibition is the Two Loop System, a concept developed by the Berkana Institute to understand social transformation. Every political, cultural, and personal system moves through inevitable stages: growth, peak, decline, and dissolution. However, on the periphery, a new system is already beginning to form—initially fragmented and almost imperceptible, but gradually gaining strength. For a time, both realities coexist: one has not yet disappeared, and the other has not yet fully emerged. We are living in this transitional space.

This theory aligns with Donna Haraway’s compost theory: the new does not arise in isolation; it grows from the remnants of the old, repurposed and reimagined, much like soil where decay and birth are inseparable.

Six artists in the exhibition explore this delicate balance, capturing it through material and visual forms. Their works embody acts of resistance and adaptation: political protest weaves itself into the fabric of the city, leaving a tangible trace. Like human experience, trees hold onto the past and return it in new forms. The ever-present gaze of an external observer turns the female body into an object—until it breaks free from the confines of stereotypes. Personal identity unfolds in layers—imperfect yet honest. The memory of parents transforms into a material language, where heritage is not just about objects but also about the process of reinterpretation. Even human skin becomes a metaphor for perpetual renewal, regardless of our will.

Spring Cannot Be Cancelled is an attempt to grasp the movement of transition. What will the new structures forming today ultimately become? How will they reflect instability while maintaining resilience? Where are their boundaries, and who defines them? These questions remain open, but within this space of uncertainty, we begin to discern the outlines of the future.

Galerie Friches Et Nous la Paix (16 Rue Denoyez, 75020 Paris)
20-30 March, 2025

Exhibition website https://www.projetbetula.com/spring-cannot-be-cancelled