In this collection of ceramic works, the artist crafts a visual narrative that navigates the fluid boundaries of queerness, kinship, and personal mythology. Through dynamic forms, the exhibition explores oppositions—normal and abnormal, connection and compartmentalization, self and other—using chimeric figures and segmented vases as metaphors for identity and belonging.

Drawing on Roland Barthes’ assertion that “the function of myth is to empty reality,” the exhibition questions how personal and collective mythologies both obscure and reveal reality.  Each piece becomes a space where stories are reclaimed and reshaped, with queerness and kinship woven into new mythic forms, challenging conventional narratives and creating space for fluid identities. 

This fluidity of identity is echoed in the medium itself. Like the clay that is both fragile and enduring, the narrative of queerness unfolds in layers. Chimeras, surreal and hybrid, challenge the binaries of “normal” and “abnormal,” offering a bold commentary on otherness, defiance, and self-definition. The vases, with their fragmented yet connected forms, reflect how we build containers for our experiences—showing both unity and division. “I SHARPEN THE BLADE IN ORDER TO FORGIVE” reflects a journey toward forgiveness and the power of transforming personal and collective wounds. The exhibition celebrates the beauty of the unconventional, finding kinship and strength in the fragments and edges of identities that resist simple categorization. Here, ceramics become both blade and balm—tools for survival, resistance, and ultimately, forgiveness.

Lisa Deikun, born in 1992 in Minsk, Belarus. In 2022, she had to leave Belarus due to political persecution following her activism in the protests for fair elections. She relocated to Warsaw, Poland, where she has continued her artistic practice and has been involved in the decolonial research lab "Mycelium".

Since moving, Lisa has participated as an artist in Vasenthien AIR program in Germany and KAIR program in Košice, Slovakia. Lisa exhibited in Artraum Tangente, Niedersachsen, Germany and Šopa Gallery in Košice, Slovakia. She is currently based between Warsaw and Berlin.

List of works [ PDF ]
Artist presentation [ PDF ]
Invitation [ PDF ]

The exhibited works were created during a three-month residency as part of the KAIR Košice Artist in Residence project.