Open Group: Repeat after Me II

Repeat after Me II is a collective portrait of witnesses to the ongoing war in Ukraine, presented in the form of an audiovisual video installation. The protagonists of the film at the Polish Pavilion are civilians with refugee experience, speaking about the war through the sounds of weapons they recall, which they invite the audience to repeat. The Open Group art collective and curator Marta Czyż have thus created a military karaoke of the future, joining the public and war witnesses in dialogue.

Repeat after Me II is an installation by the Ukrainian Open Group collective, made up of two films. These videos were created in 2022 and 2024. All the people they feature are refugees, speaking of their war experiences through the sounds of weapons they recall, then encouraging the audience to follow their lead. The artist use the karaoke format. Yet here the accompaniment is not hit songs, but shots, missiles, howling and explosions, and the lyrics are descriptions of deadly weapons. This is the soundtrack of a war.

The juxtaposition of these works from 2022 and 2024 shows the drastic continuity of memory, as well as the changes in war technology. The first video was shot in a camp near Lviv for people resettled within the country. The second work was made outside of Ukraine, in the countries of Western Europe, which are a haven for the participants. Yet even now, beyond the reach of the endless sirens, the sounds of war remain part of their trauma and symbolically spread their range.

The audience can repeat the sounds of the weapons after the witnesses, learning the language of their experiences, or step back into the safe space designed to look like a karaoke bar. Yet this is no ordinary bar, it is a karaoke instruction site for a military future that threatens all of us.

A few weeks before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Strategic Communications and Security Information Centre of the Ministry of Culture and Information Politics began distributing brochures called In Case of Emergency or War, explaining how to behave in a war zone. The instructions vary depending on whether the attack in question is automatic rifle fire, artillery shelling, rocket launchers, or an air raid. The ability to tell between them can save your life. Repeat after Me II portrays war as a collective experience — crossing age, ethnicity, professional and social status — giving the floor to witnesses and calling attention to the individual experiences of catastrophe. 

The caretaker of the Polish Pavilion and organiser of the exhibition at the 60th International Venice Biennale is Zachęta — National Gallery of Art. Poland has participated in the Venice Biennale with its own pavilion since 1932.

Press release: see here.

Polish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale

Exhibitors: Open Group — Yuriy Biley, Pavlo Kovach, Anton Varga
Curator: Marta Czyż

Commissioner: Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz, Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland
Organiser: Zachęta — National Gallery of Art
Interim Director of the Zachęta — National Gallery of Art: Justyna Szylman
Polish Pavilion office: Anna Kowalska, Michał Kubiak (deputy commissioner)

Poland’s participation in the Venice Biennale is financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland.

Sponsor: ORLEN
Exhibition partners: Adam Mickiewicz Institute, dela.art collection, Paradyż, Krupa Art Foundation
Publication supported by: DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program with funds from the German Federal Foreign Office
Co-operation: Polish Institute in Rome
Media partner: Vogue Polska
Media patronage: Polskie Radio dla Zagranicy, Raport o stanie świata, TVP Kultura, TVP 2, Suspilne Media
Sponsor of the opening reception: Cisowianka Perlage