Eye Sea Gallery

The Little Body is a curatorial project of the Eye Sea Gallery at the Lviv Municipal Art Center.

The project observes the fragility and vulnerability of self-perception, exploring the balance between identifying one’s body as an insignificant and temporary “shelter for the soul” and the desire to elevate the body to a cult-like status, immortalizing its image.

The perception of the body inevitably remains sensual, despite attempts to transition from an idealistic to a materialistic view. The body continues to be a vessel of meaning and a mirror reflecting all human activity, defining the sensory nature of human existence as an ontological trait.

Principles, fears, reflections, and value systems are embedded in the body—its language, plasticity, strength, endurance, fragility, and, ultimately, mortality.

The “Little Body” project explores questions of self-identification through one’s own body and through observing others. It examines the phenomenon of comparison as a stage toward relinquishing the need for constant comparison.

Through bodily identity, a person exists as a system within a system, allowing them to remain separate from the world’s structures and perceive themselves as a distinct entity—being within being. The physical body, in its concrete manifestation, is a crucial factor and prerequisite for social life. As a complex socio-psychological phenomenon, it encompasses various characteristics, with one of the most significant being its social dimension.

The exhibition includes photographs of soldiers who have lost limbs, confronting the viewer with the critical and complex theme of the body in the context of war, suffering, and recovery. These images do not merely depict physical bodies; they also convey profound transformations—both external and internal. The loss of a limb in these photographs serves as a powerful symbol of struggle, loss, and, at the same time, resilience.

A body altered by war is no longer just an object of physical integrity. It becomes a carrier of deep emotional and psychological transformations.

Artists who take part in the exhibition:

• Oleksandr Grebenyuk
• Yevheniia Grigoryan
• Alla Huzhva
• Mane Díaz
• Maria Kulikovska
• Yevheniia Kupchan
• Veronika Mol
• Khrystyna Otchich
• Roman Pyatkovka
• Andriy Roik
• Marta Syrko
• Yuriy Solomko
• Danyil Fronchko
• Aesc

Curator: Kseniya Fokina

The exhibition Little Body takes place at the Lviv Municipal Art Center from March 1 to 31, 2025.