ZHANNA KADYROVA 'The Forest'

Ukrainian artist Zhanna Kadyrova’s IHME Helsinki Commission 2025 opens to the public on Ukraine’s Independence Day, Sunday 24 August 2025. Her video installation, The Forest, will be on view for six weeks at the Steam Power Plant of the Power Station Museum (Voimalamuseo, Hämeentie 163, Helsinki), until 2 October 2025.

The Forest presents a meditative image: a young forest swaying endlessly in the wind. On 6 June 2023, the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam by Russian forces drained a vast artificial reservoir spanning 2,155 square kilometers, causing irreversible damage to the surrounding ecosystems, villages, and towns. The attack also obliterated valuable cultural heritage. Yet within a year, a dense four-meter-high forest of willows and poplars emerged where the reservoir once stood—a quiet but powerful act of natural resilience.