The artist Maria Kulikovska was born and raised in Crimea and has recently fled Ukraine for the second time in her life.
She is currently in exile in Austria with her seven-month-old daughter Eva.
Among other things, she is known for the acclaimed performance artwork Action at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg in 2014, where she portrayed the people who were killed in the eastern parts of Ukraine by lying on a staircase covered by the Ukrainian flag.
- I was naive and thought that maybe I could change something for the better.
That through art I could change the world and stop the war.
But honestly, that was my way of surviving, she says.
Designed a shelter
Maria Kulikovska performed her latest performance at the opening of the Stage of Emerge exhibition at the Catinca Tabacaru Gallery in Bucharest, which draws attention to thirteen contemporary Ukrainian artists.
With her daughter in her arms, she portrayed what it was like to stay in a shelter in Kyiv, where she lived before fleeing the country.
She believes that the work was dedicated to all Ukrainian women and children who are in the middle of the war.
- I sat with her the whole opening, I held her and breastfed her.
Because when you're in a shelter, you do nothing, you just wait.
And it can last for any length of time.
"My own therapy"
For Maria Kulikovska, art has previously been a way to provoke and make a difference.
Now it is rather a way of processing what is happening in her life, she says.
- I think it's my own therapy.
My art shapes my life, those are my own words.