A Work Saved: When a Sculpture Becomes a Witness to War

At the Venice Biennale, not all works come from protected spaces or abstract ideas. Some arrive from real places, shaped by history and the violence of the present. In the Ukrainian Pavilion, a suspended sculpture greets visitors with a quiet strength: it is a deer, a work not originally created for the Biennale but brought here because it was no longer safe elsewhere. The sculpture, titled Deer and created by Ukrainian artist Zhanna Kadyrova, was located in a public space in Eastern Ukraine, part of the everyday landscape and accessible to all, without barriers or explanations. As the Russian front approached, the work was dismantled and evacuated to prevent its destruction. This concrete act—saving a sculpture as one would save a person or essential property—is now an integral part of its meaning.

Exhibited in Venice, the work has not been transformed or sensationalized: it remains what it has always been, yet carries the weight of its forced relocation. From a curatorial perspective, the choice is clear and deliberate: not to represent war through explicit images, but to show a direct, tangible consequence. The deer thus becomes a presence that bears witness to what happens to culture, public space, and shared life when war erupts. It does not speak of heroism or propaganda, but of fragility and protection, of what risks being lost and what is painstakingly chosen to be saved.

The Ukrainian Pavilion’s project revolves around the theme of safety—not only in a military or political sense, but as a condition necessary for art, memory, and daily life to continue existing. In this sense, the deer is not just a work of art, but a survivor, a safeguarded object, a presence that has endured conflict without being destroyed. Anyone, regardless of age or cultural background, can grasp its message: what stands before us is something that should not have been moved, but was, because the world around it changed. Amid the complexity and spectacle of the Biennale, this sculpture remains steady, essential, and vulnerable—and precisely for that reason, it speaks to everyone, turning a dramatic experience into a shared reflection on the value of culture and the responsibility to protect it.