Marta Dyachenko's work examines the relationships between architecture, collective memory and contemporary socio-political issues. Through imaginary landscapes composed of models, sculptures and installations, she observes how the built environment shapes our historical and cultural understanding of the world. Her approach combines concrete and fictional elements to reveal the tensions at play between construction, ruin and reconstruction. By paying attention to the visible and invisible traces left by time, Dyachenko opens up a critical reflection on our relationship to space and history, and on the ways in which society builds, and erases, the territories it inhabits.
For over a century, iron dictated the shape of Esch: its urban planning, its work rhythms, its collective memory. Beneath this industrial development, the river disappeared, channelled, covered over, erased from the heart of the city. Today it survives as a vestige: a caged watercourse, a silent witness to an era that sought to dominate it.
Graue Strömung (Hydro) begins with a simple question: what if the river reappeared? The title calls upon water (hydro, from the Greek hydōr) in its full breadth. Water shapes landscapes, communities and futures: today more than ever it is a condition of life, at a time when climate change reminds us of its scarcity and fragility. But it is also a place, one of gathering and encounter, of a social life that is invented at the water's edge as much as by the water itself. To recover the river is to open up a collective space: one of relearning to live with nature rather than protecting ourselves from it.
This gesture, at the scale of the urban landscape, reconnects the human and the living, from a perspective that is at once social, ecological and political. Moving through several temporalities, from the industrial past to a hypothetical future, by way of the present of the contained river, the exhibition invites us to imagine what a city reconciled with its elements might look like, and calls for observation.
Artist: Marta Dyachenko
Curator: Charlotte Masse
Project Room
Biography
Marta Dyachenko (born in 1990 in Kyiv, Ukraine) studied architecture and fine arts, specializing in sculpture, at the Berlin University of the Arts. Her works have been exhibited at the following institutions: Kunstmuseum Magdeburg (2025), Ruhrtriennale - Zeche Zollverein (2024), Kunsthalle Recklinghausen (2024), Klosterfelde Edition Berlin (2024, solo exhibition), Dittrich und Schlechtriem Galerie (2023, solo exhibition), New Position Förderkoje ART Cologne (2023, solo exhibition), and Kunsthaus Dahlem Berlin (2022, solo exhibition). In 2025, she received a grant from the Kulturstiftung der Länder, which enabled her to reside at the Cité des Arts in Paris. In 2024, she received a grant from the Stiftung Kunstfonds and in 2021, she received the Bernhard Heiliger Grant. Marta Dyachenko lives and works in Berlin. She is represented by Dittrich und Schlechtriem Gallery and Klosterfelde Edition.
Konschthal Esch
29 boulevard Prince Henri
L-4280 Esch-sur-Alzette
Discover the cultural agenda of Konschthal Esch during Luxembourg Art Week.
