I Am Not Here
An exhibition exploring escape, belonging and the possibility of living outside accepted social norms. The project considers withdrawal from society and the formation of alternative communities.
Andrii Siguntsov participated as artist and curator.
About the project
I Am Not Here examines escape as a response to social expectations and the pressure to maintain a prescribed way of life. The escapist questions whether the norms presented as universal can really account for the variety of individual experience.
The exhibition considers different forms of withdrawal, from the guarded privacy of wealth to the search for like-minded people in virtual communities. Sharing a territory no longer necessarily means sharing a world, while distant connections can become more meaningful than physical proximity. Escape can signal privilege, exhaustion, refusal or the search for another form of belonging.
Within the Ukrainian context described by the original project, social maladaptation makes these questions particularly acute. The curatorial text approaches withdrawal through its contradictions: it may offer protection from an unbearable reality while also revealing the limits of a society’s capacity to accommodate difference.