I had the great pleasure of meeting you at your opening in Venice this year. I’d like to ask you about your installation for the Italian pavilion. 

The installation in Venice is a high fidelity portrait made to the Western World from an Italian perspective. Of course we decided to use the industrial landscape as an analogy of our society, but I think that this work is, above all, an intimate project.

Your artwork from Odessa, created so many years ago feels relevant today more than ever, please tell us the concept beyond it. How do you feel about the current situation in Ukraine?

It is hard to say these things in words. After the war, many people in Ukraine told me that the vision I created was some sort of a prophecy. In general I say that if you make a very precise portrait of somebody you will be even able to know what is in its future. It is like a medical observation. If you look in the depth you will be probably able to see the evidence of some disease that is growing under the skin.
At that time I couldn’t really imagine this evolution of the war. The artworks are not the result of a rational process. I see things and I just put them into an image. Then, the image must be interpreted. The beginning of a war gave an interpretation to the vision I had, but I’m sure that it allows even other perspectives to be told.
In the meantime I follow this war on the newspapers. I’m helping many Ukrainian artists to come to Europe and continue their researches that have been brutally interrupted by the war, but in these days I’m even hosting a Russian friend, who is an activist and cannot come back to her own country. For biographical reasons I feel very close to both of the cultures, Russian and Ukrainian. Both of them have so many connections and it is very sad that this war will separate them forever. A man with no culture poisoned the banquet through which two wonderful cultures fed them reciprocally for centuries.

In one of your interviews you define yourself as an observer of the status of world democracy. Where does this statement come from and what is your actual background?