Image:
“Compliance”
Natalia Zakharchenko
Acryl on canvas, October 2022
(Recommended to be accompanied by the eponymous song by Muse)
by Natalia Zakharchenko
When I don’t understand something, I paint it. The final product is never a telos as I am rarely satisfied, either because of the eternal self-doubt and/or the impossibility of the task I challenge myself with (currently I am in the fearless process of visualizing ‘accountability’ in international law). Nevertheless, this artistic exercise helps me to think throughout the process from a variety of new angles I usually neglect or belittle. It brings new colors to my thoughts, literally and metaphorically. And, if the value of the artistic cognition can be disputed by the well-seated scientism, the therapeutical effects for the life of an anxious student, taking her mind off the joys and pains of the PhD trajectory, are invaluable.
Natalia Zakharchenko is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Early-Stage Researcher and PhD Candidate at the Institute of Development Research and Development Policy (IEE) in Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and visiting researcher at VU Amsterdam.
