Open Group: "Repeat After Me" Special Screening

Location:

The High Line 14th Street Passage

14th Street 10th Avenue New York, NY 10014 United States

Event:

Join us on August 7 for a special screening of Repeat After Me by Open Group. For one night only, the 14th Street Passage on the High Line will be transformed into a karaoke bar mimicking previous immersive installations of Repeat After Me.

Оpen Group was founded in August 2012 by six Ukrainian artists. The collective’s current and permanent members are Yuriy Biley, Pavlo Kovach, and Anton Varga. The structure of Open Group is characterized by a fluidity that allows for other artists to be invited in and join the group on a project-by-project basis. Their practice explores the interactions between people and spaces, seeking to create “open situations”—environments that are unpredictable.

For the High Line, Open Group presents Repeat After Me (2024), a portrait of civilian victims of and witnesses to the ongoing war in Ukraine, arranged to follow the format of a karaoke sing-along video. The work was inspired by a brochure, In Case of Emergency or War, which was distributed by the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture and Information Policy and the Centre for Strategic Communication and Information Security, a Ukrainian government agency established in 2021. Just before Russia’s invasion, In Case of Emergency or War pamphlets were distributed to Ukrainian citizens explaining how to prepare for and survive in a war zone. These guides included instructions on how to recognize and identify different types of artillery by sound—knowledge that could potentially save lives.

Repeat After Me (2024), features a series of interviews with witnesses retelling their experience of the war, concluding with mimicking the sounds of the weapons they heard before they left their homes. Each then asks the audience to repeat the sounds back to them. Every vignette calls attention to the individual stories of war and catastrophe that so often are lost in news from the front lines, shedding light on those who have lost their belongings, their homes, and their loved ones. Repeat After Me (2024) not only serves as a form of eyewitness statement and proof of the tragedy taking place before our eyes, but it also breaks down the distance between the news and the real victims of war, forcing viewers to find deeper connection.