In collaboration with Kyiv to LA, the Thomas Mann House presents Sliced Realities, a solo exhibition by Ukrainian artist-in-residence Zhanna Kadyrova. As part of an ongoing partnership supporting Ukrainian artists through a Los Angeles-based residency, this exhibition marks Kadyrova’s first solo presentation in the United States and coincides with the four-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Sliced Realities brings Kadyrova’s anti-war practice in dialogue with Thomas Mann, whose history of political resistance raises enduring questions about the role of art in times of crisis. Centered around the artist's fundraising project Palianytsia, the exhibition features artworks from her Anxiety, Refugee, and Russian Rocket series, which reveal the surreal experience of encountering the unfamiliar within the familiar. Presented one year after the devastating fires that ravaged the surrounding Pacific Palisades and neighboring Altadena, and four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, this exhibition invites viewers to consider how art and resilience are intimately intertwined. Linking Mann’s anti-fascist radio addresses to Kadyrova’s recent bodies of work, Sliced Realities foregrounds the asterisks and annotations that emerge when creative practices are restructured as forms of resistance.