Open Group's 'Years' at Tenuta dello Scompiglio: Mediatized Death and the Archive

The Ukrainian artist collective Open Group, comprising Yuriy Biley, Pavlo Kovach, and Anton Varga, presents the installation 'Years' at Tenuta dello Scompiglio in Vorno (Capannori, Lucca), curated by Angel Moya Garcia. The work consists of multiple monitors scattered throughout the exhibition space, each displaying a date carved in stone from 2014 to 2025. These are simultaneous recordings of the year of death inscribed on the tombstones of twelve Ukrainian volunteers who died in battle. The installation creates a temporal and spatial estrangement, reflecting on the mediatization of death and the transformation of personal loss into a numerical sequence. Open Group's practice is described as an 'open situation,' using the archive as an aesthetic device to record memories and traces. The exhibition runs from February 2026. The text also references the broader context of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, which began with the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and critiques the media's role in shaping perceptions of war and death.