ABSTRACT
The new bordering regime was simultaneously reconstructing and dismantling various collective memories within Donetsk's urban space. By instrumentalising memoryscapes associated with the Soviet era in Ukraine and symbolically incorporating them into Russia's semantic space, the regime manifested new borders and authority within the city. This included renaming streets, placing new flags, and launching new memorials and urban features. Anything that evoked the Ukrainian state was removed from the urban landscape, including feminist art, as demonstrated by the removal of Maria Kulikovska's Homo Bulla sculptures from IZOLYATSIA. As a result, Donetsk came to embody a complex and segmented memory space, where different memory models – national Ukrainian, local, and Soviet – often coexisted in parallel without points of intersection. Nevertheless, the city's semiosphere remained heterogeneous due to the agency of its residents, who preserved memories of the pre-2014 city and sought to reclaim space through small acts or artistic resistance.
