Girls and Institutions

In her book, written at the intersection of poetry and prose, feminist activist and writer Darya Serenko talks about people who are usually overlooked - the female employees of state cultural institutions. Their voices are also heard in the new edition, complemented by stories from other girls: those who managed to break free from institutions and those who are forced to remain in them.

State institutions are a special world, akin to a mirage, trying to impose its opaque laws on everyone who finds themselves there. Complaints to the department, accountable events, quarterly bonuses, reports, and reprimands form the basis of the everyday life in this world. The girls here are a secondary element of the system, on which, however, this entire system largely relies. They enter into complex and often codependent relationships with the system: they live by its laws, sometimes rebel, sometimes obey, mourn, rejoice, and dance, leave and return.

Darya Serenko has attempted to describe this bureaucratic mystery, full of bleak militaristic omens. In "Girls and Institutions," you will hear the choir of hundreds of girls, usually barely audible over the mechanical noise of the state machine, official culture, and now - dictatorship.