Born in Kerch, Crimea, Kulikovska’s life and work are inseparable from the political turbulence that has shaped Ukraine over the past decade. Her performances, direct confrontations with Russian aggression and authoritarianism, have landed her on Russia’s intelligence blacklist, making her a target of surveillance and persecution. Yet she remains undeterred, staging protest actions across Ukraine and Europe, defiantly challenging colonial and patriarchal structures.
In 2014, the same year she was banned, Russian forces seized the Izolyatsia art center in Donetsk, where her sculptures stood alongside works by Cai Guo-Qiang and Pascale Marthine Tayou, turning it into a prison and torture site. Her casts, molded from her own body, were destroyed. Years later, prisoners uncovered the shattered fragments, a haunting metaphor for both personal and national erasure.
