Alevtina Kakhidze: War, Memory, and Plant–Human Ecologies

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/11/20

Alevtina Kakhidze (b. 1973, Zhdanivka) is a Ukrainian multidisciplinary artist known for incisive drawing-performances that braid personal history, war testimony, and plant–human ecologies. Trained at the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in Kyiv (1999–2004) and the Jan van Eyck Academie in the Netherlands (2004–2006), she lives and works in Muzychi near Kyiv. Since 2018, she has served in Ukraine as a United Nations/UNDP “Tolerance Envoy.” Significant recognitions include the Kazimir Malevich Artist Award (2008) and the 2023 Women in Arts — The Resistance prize (Women in Visual Arts category). Recent highlights include Ukraine’s National Pavilion, From South to North, at the inaugural maltabiennale.art (2024) and the solo exhibition Plants and People at Galeria Arsenał, Białystok (October 24, 2024–January 19, 2025). Her ongoing research and performance strand Follow the Plants frames ecology as a pacifist methodology amid conflict.

Kakhidze discusses her mother’s steadfast pro-Ukrainian stance while living under Russia-backed occupation in Zhdanivka, 2014–2019. She recounts daily risks at checkpoints, market arguments, and phone calls cautioned into silence, revealing dignity defended through speech and gardening autonomy. Kakhidze links these memories to her practice—drawing-performances and the research strand Follow the Plants, which treats ecology as a pacifist method. She recalls her mother’s refusal to relocate—“I am not a wardrobe that can be taken away”—and the 2019 death during a pension-verification crossing. The conversation traces grief, documentation, and political clarity, situating exhibitions and honors within an intimately witnessed war.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We’re going to talk about your mother, whom you unfortunately lost, some of the historical material and communications you still have, and how you’ve used them as a form of communication through history and art. Is that a fair general characterization?

Your mother could be very single-minded in her pro-Ukrainian support and quite assertive with people, even while living in an area that fell under the control of Russia-backed forces in 2014—occupied territory, not legally annexed at that time. How did that change things for her and the tone she took? Then we can move into some of the documentation that came from that period. Your home territory came under occupation by Russia-backed forces in 2014. In that first period of occupation, how did her tone or choice of words change?

Alevtina Kakhidze: Not at all—she stayed very strong.

Jacobsen: Did it strain your relationship with her?

Kakhidze: It’s interesting. When the Revolution of Dignity—often called Euromaidan—began in 2013–2014, my mother didn’t support the protest at first. But when the situation became urgent in her area, and propaganda tried to claim that Maidan was the reason the war started, she took a strong pro-Ukrainian position. She said everything that was happening locally under the occupation was illegal and that there was no threat coming from Kyiv to ordinary people there. She was absolutely steadfast in her thinking.

She visited me after 2015, when the contact line had become somewhat more stable, though crossings were still risky. I mentioned that older people—retirees—were crossing the contact line into government-controlled territory to verify their identity and collect their pensions. She also did this and even visited me in Kyiv.

We talked a lot about Maidan. I explained the situation to her and told her many stories. Once I left her with a book about Maidan, and she cried when she saw the photos of the “Heavenly Hundred”—around one hundred protesters killed over a few days in the final stage of the protests.

I think she understood what the protest was about, and we became even closer in our political perspective on Ukraine. She never hesitated about what was happening. From the first day of the occupation she was pro-Ukrainian, and I became worried because she felt she would lose her dignity if she couldn’t express her opinion in front of her friends. I was concerned because she would argue with people at the market.

Sometimes her friends even tried to restrain her. If someone from the armed authorities was nearby, even friends who leaned pro-Russian or separatist would tell her not to speak so loudly, because they were afraid something could happen.

When she crossed the line of contact, if her phone rang, people on the bus would tell her, “Don’t talk on your phone,” because the situation was dangerous. She became very irritated that her city was so tightly controlled. She didn’t like it.

She told me, “Look, they check my passport so many times, and their hands are dirty. In our country, no one ever checked passports with such filthy hands.” Of course, the checkpoints weren’t proper ones like at an airport. There were makeshift posts, sandbags, and tension everywhere. She was deeply irritated by all of it and would say so to anyone nearby. She remained firm—if anything, she became more radical. For her, it was important to stand by her convictions.

For instance, she once said, “If I put up a Ukrainian flag, what would they do to me—kill me?” Hearing her say that was terrifying. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t tell her, “Don’t do this,” because that would sound like I was giving orders, and it might only make her more determined. But I couldn’t encourage her either, which also felt wrong. So I stayed silent and listened. That continued almost until the end—until January 2019.

She was never influenced by Russian disinformation. She was absolutely strong-minded.

Jacobsen: She once said something noteworthy: “I am not a wardrobe that can be taken away.” In her choice to stay in Zhdanivka, what did that phrase mean?

Kakhidze: She was very independent and didn’t want to move to a new place and become dependent on us—on me and my husband. She wanted to stay with her own home and community.

Even when the city was occupied and she couldn’t access money—she couldn’t cross into Ukrainian-controlled territory to collect her pension, and the new illegal authorities weren’t paying citizens—she survived by working her small plot of land. She grew cucumbers, carrots, and cabbage, and during the summer she preserved them, pickling everything. Then, in winter, she sold her jars for more money since they were already prepared goods.

She told me, “I don’t need their money. I earn my living by myself.” She even lent money to others. After she died, her friend told me she found a list—records of debts that other people owed her.

Her friend told me that when my mother died, she found a list of debts—people who owed her money. This woman asked me, “Alevtina, do you want these people to give the money to you now?” I said, “No, of course not.” My mother wasn’t doing it for that. She was afraid of becoming dependent—on anyone.

She was also very angry that her life ended under those circumstances. I understand that feeling. I don’t want to become a refugee either. Even though I would have more privileges as one—I speak English, I have a gallery in Belgium, I have a network, I studied in the Netherlands twenty years ago, and I still have friends there. It would be easier for me than for many Ukrainians who never lived abroad. But it feels deeply unfair. You build your life, and suddenly, because of people obsessed with imperial expansion, you have to leave your home.

I don’t know what my mother would think about the reasons for this war. I don’t remember us ever discussing it deeply. She would just say, “The war started. What could I do? I could only watch.”

Yet she always found ways to stay independent, even while living under occupation. She would say, “I’m going to the garden.” I can imagine her walking there, surrounded by silence, feeling that in her garden she controlled everything—she planted, things grew, and that was her domain. It was her kingdom, where she was queen, where no one could interfere.

We always talked about the bazaar, about what she grew in her garden, what she sold. Even in occupied territory, she had autonomy, a sense of success.

I remember when we bought her an apartment in Irpin, on the first floor. The building was still under construction, and we asked the builders to install not a window, but a glass door that opened directly onto a small plot of land. It was much smaller than what she had in Zhdanivka, but we promised her she would have soil to work with. We showed her everything and were preparing her to move closer to us.

She died about a year and a half before COVID. During the pandemic, no one could cross the border. Probably, I think, she would have moved to us once the COVID restrictions eased. Maybe we would have been together. She often went back and forth in her mind—one day she would say, “I’m thinking of moving to you,” and the next day, “It would be too hard for me; I prefer to stay.”

My mother and I spoke almost every day, sometimes twice a day, even if it was only for twenty minutes. You asked earlier about problems between us. I always understood that she was in a much more difficult situation, so I never told her about my own problems. It wasn’t really an equal relationship. I couldn’t share much from my side because I didn’t want her to worry.

When I called her and she didn’t answer, I immediately felt anxious. For all those five years, it was a constant stress. I remember when I got the news that she had died, my first thought was that we were both so exhausted by the situation that, in a strange way, there was also some relief. But then, of course, other emotions came. It was still very hard.

It was difficult being so far away. I never visited her from 2014 until her death in 2019. I once saw her on television—Ukrainian journalists were allowed to visit the occupied territory and film there. In one clip, I noticed that the glass in her window was broken, and she had never told me. It showed me how much she hid, just as I did.

On one hand, we were honest about what was happening in her city. For instance, she would tell me about our neighbors’ opinions and the arguments she had with them. One of my old school friends, for example, became sympathetic to the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic.

My mother was selling her goods at the market, and his mother said to her, “Luda, why are you criticizing this new government? My son has a new car now.” Those so-called authorities were basically bandits who had taken cars and property from others. My mother couldn’t stay silent. She confronted her, even physically pushing her in anger.

My mother had a very transparent way of looking at things—always connected to reality. 

Jacobsen: On January 16, 2019, Lyudmila set out from Zhdanivka, in Russian-occupied territory, toward government-controlled Ukraine to complete the in-person identification check required for pension payments. She was heading to the Mayorsk checkpoint, roughly forty kilometers away. She had already traveled for hours and was waiting in line when, tragically, she died during the crossing process. Some reports specify cardiac arrest. What does that day mean to you? What does that story tell about your mother’s last day?

Kakhidze: You saw the file I sent you—each year of her life is noted carefully, and so was that day. It was terrible because, at first, the authorities—what would be the equivalent of the FBI in the U.S., their security service—told me not to believe right away that my mother was dead. They said they had to verify it. So for almost three days, I lived in uncertainty, not knowing whether she was really gone.

The internet connection in my house is often poor, but I remember that moment clearly. I was sending messages, waiting for confirmation. It was surreal—like time had stopped. Eventually, everything was confirmed.

I later sent you all the notes. Every part of that period is documented. Yesterday I went to Fabrika, but now I’m home, so I can’t go again tonight—it’s too late. 

Jacobsen: Thank you very much for your time today. I appreciate it, and I hope you have a wonderful sleep.

Kakhidze: Thank you, Scott. I really appreciate that you spend time on Ukrainian topics. I’m very pleased. I was amazed at how quickly you put everything we discussed into professional writing. 

Jacobsen: You’re very welcome.

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