PRESENTATION: Politics of Filtration

In 2023, Russian authorities established a special border regime for Ukrainian citizens, attempting to reach their occupied hometowns. Since then, Ukrainians seeking to enter Russia, and from there Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, have been required to pass through ‘filtration’ at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport. Alongside routine border control, Ukrainians undergo a series of invasive procedures, such as screening and extraction of their biometric and digital data, which result for many of those attempting to reach their hometowns in a deportation and entry ban for 20 or 50 years.

This project employs writing, animation, and zine-making to examine the state’s practices of surveillance and management of life under occupation.

Through a performative lecture, researchers Ksenia Rybak and Daria Hetmanova will zoom in and out from the airport’s interrogation rooms to the broader network connecting filtration to Mariupol and its residents. They will present video work made collaboratively with spatial researcher and architect Natasha Pereverzina, alongside research findings published as a zine created in dialogue with an artist and graphic designer, Stefania Bodnia.