Installation

Ukrainian artist Sonya Isupova built a machine that translates data from agricultural monitoring satellites into maps depicting landscapes: it reveals trees, fields, hedges, growth, recovery and renewal.

Dark green areas correspond to dense vegetation, while light green represents moderate levels of vegetation, and white to water. This type of data, known as NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index), is useful for understanding vegetation density and assessing changes in plant health.

With Mapping an Uncertain Landscape the artist wants to explore the ecological repercussions of the ongoing war in Ukraine and its impact on the landscape and infrastructure, especially in the southern regions most affected. Infrastructures are often invisible until they fail, as was tragically demonstrated on June 6, 2023 with the destruction of the Kakhovska Dam. This catastrophe not only caused enormous human suffering, but has also turned out to be a major environmental disaster with far-reaching consequences. In collaboration with ecologists and geoscientists, the artist creates an extensive series of maps depicting vegetation data at key moments around the destruction of the dam: days before, days after and a year later.

The installation examines the relationship between humans and machines, the cartographer and the map, paying particular attention to remote sensing infrastructures and their challenges. It also questions maps and cartographic processes in an effort to perceive the everyday changes that occur in the Ukrainian landscape due to the war.

Mapping an Uncertain Landscape also wants to offer a testimony about the arduous task Ukrainians face on a daily basis. Traumatic events require witnesses; seeing and hearing is a fundamental basis of journalism. Now, this responsibility extends to Ukrainian artists, designers and cultural workers. Through mapping, these cultural professionals continue the work of bearing witness to the brutality of war, however imperfectly.

Artist: Sonya Isupova

Work included in the exhibition Digital Machines: Technology, Industry, Society.

CREDITS

Scientific collaborators: Anatolii Chernov PhD, Sofia Hordiichuk

Technical assistance: Hsuan Lee, David Heritier, Frédéric Butor-Blamont

Music: Aleyna Günay

With the support of: HEAD Geneva, Kyiv Emergency Art Platform