Nikolay KarabinovychActor from M HKA Ensembles

Nikolay Karabinovych

° 1988

Based in Antwerp (BE), born in Odesa (UA).

Nikolay Karabinovych (1988, Odesa) lives and works in Brussels and Kyiv. The artist works in various media, including video, sound, text and performance. In 2019-2020 Karabinovych studied at the Higher Institute for Fine Arts (HISK) in Ghent. In 2017 he was assistant curator of the 5th Odessa Biennial and in 2020 he received the PinchukArtCentre First Special Prize for his work Even Further. His work has been shown at the M HKA in Antwerp, the PinchukArtCentre Kyiv, the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow and the Museum of Modern Art in Odessa.

In his atelier Karabinovych explores his Jewish, Greek and Ukrainian roots and thus the dramatic social histories of Eastern Europe, approaching collective and personal memory through analytical, conceptual or interventionist tactics. Music plays an important role in this.

With his work Dead Pool Won't Ripple (2019) Karabinovych tells the story of the owner of a nightclub and activist from the LGBTI community in Odessa who went to the front in 2014 to take up arms against the first Russian invasion. He never returned. In 2022, together with the Antwerp gallery TICK TACK, Karabinovych, organised the 'Ukrainian for Beginners' film programme and fundraiser with video works from the 1990s to the present day by artists who are currently in hiding, on the run or have found shelter somewhere safe.