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Oxana Shachko
Оксана Шачко
Oksana Shachko - 8 March 2009a.jpg
Born (1987-01-31)31 January 1987
Khmelnytskyi, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Died 23 July 2018(2018-07-23) (aged 31)
Paris, France
Other names Oksana Shachko
Oksana Chatchko
Occupation Artist, activist
Years active 2008–2018

Oksana Shachko (Ukrainian: Оксана Шачко; 31 January 1987 – 23 July 2018) was a Ukrainian artist and activist. Along with Anna Hutsol and Alexandra Shevchenko, she was one of the founders of the radical feminist activist group Femen, which publicly demonstrates in various countries against various causes.

Biography

Oksana Chatchko was born in Khmelnytsky, a typical soviet town in the western part of Ukraine, in an Orthodox Christian family. Her parents both worked in a factory and when the Soviet Union collapsed the factories closed and they both lost their jobs, in a context of a political and economic crisis.

In 1995, at the age of 8, Chatchko joined the Nikosh school, normally intended for adults and renowned for its teaching of Orthodox iconography. She graduated from this school and her early artwork was exhibited in several collective exhibitions in Ukraine and in the United States. At the age of twelve, she started painting frescoes, working in the Orthodox church full-time. She then expressed the desire to join a convent and become a nun, but her mother and her family convinced her not to do so.

Later, at the age of 14, she rejected the Orthodox Church and religion and became an atheist, believing that the Orthodox priests behave more like merchants than God's representatives. She continued to paint though to earn a living.

In 2000, she joined the free university of Khmelnytsky to study philosophy, which triggered a deep crisis of conscience. At this time, she started feeling upset about the lack of space devoted to women to express their ideas and their creativity. She founded with other students the "Center for New Perspectives", an organisation fighting against corruption and for student rights. At this point, she met Anna Hutsol and Aleksandra Shevchenko. She later indicated in the documentary film I am Femen that this experience forged her political and philosophical conceptions, making her become an activist fighting for women's rights and freedom of expression.

Activism

In 2008, together with Anna Hutsol and Alexandra Shevchenko, Shachko founded the feminist activist group FEMEN. The group initially protested about issues affecting women students. Since then, FEMEN activists have broadened their agenda to women's rights and civil rights in Ukraine and around the world.

Members of FEMEN, including Shachko, were detained on numerous occasions. Probably the worst episode had happen in 2011, when a group of activists demanded release of political prisoners in the Belarusian capital Minsk. Shachko and two other women were kidnapped by the Belarusian KGB, taken to a forest, made to strip, doused with oil and threatened with being set on fire.

Shachko worked together with French writer Galia Ackerman who produced a history of FEMEN which was published by Calmann-Lévy in 2013. In 2014, the award-winning documentary film about Shachko, Je suis Femen (I am Femen) by filmmaker Alain Margot was released.

France granted her political refugee status in 2013, after several attacks by security forces connected to Vladimir Putin, a target of FEMEN protests along with the French Front National. She lived in Paris working as a painter.

Art

At the time of her death, Shachko was concentrating on her artworks, called Iconoclast: Orthodox icons painted in the traditional method, onto which she introduced transgressives details to confront religious dogma with feminist, political or humanist messages. Shachko had her first solo exhibition in Paris in May 2016.

Death

Shachko died in Paris, France, on 23 July 2018. She was 31.

Art reviews

  • "Oksana Shachko: from Femen to painter", by Armelle le Turc, Crash, winter 2017–2018.
  • "Oksana Shachko: Counter-Religious Iconography", text by Stacey Batashova, video by Apollonaria Broche, 032C, 4 October 2016.
  • "Oksana Shachko, une Femen en pleine crise de foi", by Sabrina Silamo, Télérama on 14 May 2016.
  • "Oksana Shachko : l'ex-Femen iconoclaste expose sa Vierge Marie en burqa", by Ronan Tésorière and Amandine Pointel, Le Parisien on 3 June 2016.
  • "Elle quitte les Femen pour peindre des icônes religieuses", by Jérémy André and Jérôme Wysocki, Le Point on 13 January 2016.

Selected filmography

  • Je suis Femen (I'm Femen), documentary film (1hour 35 mins), written and directed by Alain Margot, produced by Caravel Production (Switzerland) and Luminor Films Distribution (France), 2014.
  • Everyday Rebellion, documentary film (1hour 58 mins), written and directed by the Riahi Brothers Arash T. Riahi and Arman Riahi, Austria / Switzerland / Germany, 2013.

Music

  • La Lumière est Noire (The Light is Black), by Alain Margot (Je suis Femen), Chiara Darbellay, Mathieu Schneider, (2019).

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Oksana Shachko para niños

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