Кoнец фильма: Ruins, Remnants, and Remains of the USSR Army in Borne Sulinowo as an Inspiration for Performance Artists

Abstract

This article analyzes the significance of the ruins and remnants of the Soviet Army in Borne Sulinowo, a former secret Soviet military base in Western Pomerania (Poland), as a source of inspiration for performance artists. This study draws from a variety of theoretical frameworks, including performance art theory, new materialism, and the thing theory. Additionally, it draws from the ideas of Carl Lavery, Richard Gough, Ann Laura Stoler, and Georg Simmel. This text delves into the notion that the transient character of performance art mirrors the fleeting nature of power, particularly in the context of the dissolution of the Soviet regime. Following the Polish reacquisition of the site in the early 1990s, artists such as Władysław Kaźmierczak and Brian Connolly transformed found objects and the decaying environment into performance art. This article analyzes performances such as Kaźmierczak’s кoнец фильма (The End of the Movie) and Connolly’s Frieze Frame. It discusses how these works captured the emotional and intellectual responses to the remnants of military occupation. The performances demonstrate the interplay between decay, memory, and historical consciousness, employing the ruins as a medium for reflecting on the collapse of Soviet influence in Poland and the shifting geopolitical landscape.

1. Introduction

The ruins of Borne Sulinowo, a former secret Soviet military base in Western Pomerania, stand as a poignant symbol of historical transformation, marking the end of the Soviet presence in Poland. Once a clandestine site, the base and the town built around it were abandoned by the Soviet Army in the early 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union. This article explores how performance artists, particularly Władysław Kaźmierczak and Brian Connolly, whom I interviewed at length for this study, engaged with the remnants of the Soviet military presence in Borne Sulinowo to create performance art pieces that reflect on themes of decay, memory, and the transient nature of power. Drawing on performance art theory, new materialism, and the thing (Bill Brown) and stuff (Maurizia Boscagli) theories, as well as the reflections of scholars such as Carl Lavery, Richard Gough, Ann Laura Stoler, and Georg Simmel on ruins, this text examines how ruins, rather than simply serving as passive backdrops, actively perform on the artists, shaping their creative responses to the remnants of military occupation. The ephemeral quality of performance art, paired with the ruins’ symbolic resonance, invites deeper contemplation of the collapse of regimes and the passage of time.

In a conversation with Joanna Matuszak, performance artist Andrés Galeano observed that objects utilized in performance art can function as “a relic, a product, a symbol, a ready-made, a fetish.” (Galeano and Matuszak 2014, p. 105). The artist refers to a Duchampian approach, in which the selection of an object and the subsequent imposition of a meaning onto it are fundamental to the concept of art. This approach has been corroborated, or rather supplemented, by the new materialism and thing theories. As performance art scholar Amelia Jones has articulated, these theories “allow for a focus on how action intersects with materials to produce new spaces of meaning.” (Jones 2015, p. 21). Jones posits that the objective should be to embrace methodologies that facilitate profound engagement with the materialities that are encountered. The author posits that such engagement contributes meaningfully to art’s ongoing process of creating meaning. This engagement facilitates connections to past materialities and, by extension, to historical agential forces, whether entirely human or otherwise (Jones 2015, p. 27). The objective of this study is to analyze the three performances inspired by this unusual place, bearing many historical layers, from the above-mentioned perspectives.

In the 1994 documentary program aired on TVP Historia entitled Soldiers Without Empire, Lt. Gen. Anatolij Łopata, Deputy Commander of the Northern Army Group, stated that “It was necessary to understand, and most officers realized it, that the former State of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which we faithfully served, had crumbled. In the midst of this disintegration, a fracturing of my own self, my soul, was occurring. A breakthrough in my consciousness was taking place.” (Widarski 1994). The program centered on the largest secret military installation of the Soviet Armed Forces, Borne Sulinowo, situated in West Pomerania, which was reclaimed by Poland in the early 1990s. The following article will analyze the performances that emerged from the visits of artists to that town between 1992 and 1993, when it was not yet officially opened and was guarded by Polish soldiers. The artworks constituted a response to a frequently neglected aspect of the political transition in Poland, namely the evacuation of the Soviet army. The title of the article is derived from a performance by Władysław Kaźmierczak, entitled Кoнец фильма [The End of the Movie]. The article’s structure is based on an action by Sean Taylor, entitled React, Repair, Reclaim. In this artwork, the artist stenciled the three words in Polish on various buildings and objects in Borne Sulinowo. Subsequently, he combined the footage from the action with the footage and photographs—primarily documenting military training—that he found there into a short film (Taylor 1993). In my view, the title of the artwork succinctly encapsulates the intellectual and emotional journey undertaken by performance artists confronted with the overwhelming debris, vestiges, and ruins that they encountered in the town.

In their introduction to the Special Issue of Performance Research entitled “Ruins and Ruination,” Carl Lavery and Richard Gough observe that there has been a paucity of attention paid to the ways in which we may perform in ruins and, conversely, to the ways in which ruins may perform on us (Lavery and Gough 2015, pp. 1–2). It is somewhat perplexing, given that performance art is inherently transient, much like ruins and remains. The ephemerality of a performance reflects the transient nature of ruins, emphasizing the transient and ever-changing aspects of life, and particularly in this case, the transitory nature of all authority.1 The ruins, remnants, and remains under discussion do not, however, align with the conventional “ruinological” discourse within the humanities. At the time these ruins became a source of inspiration for the artists, they were not yet regarded with a sense of nostalgia, unless it was nostalgia experienced by the soldiers and their families who had lived there.2 At that time, these sites had not yet become the subject of extensive “ruin lust” tourism, nor were they the source of a significant number of artistic creations that could be described as “ruin porn.” (see Lyons 2015). The period during which the material for performances was collected represented an ideal “in-between” state. The town had been abandoned, but it was soon to be reoccupied following the dismantling and clearance of the impressive mounds of remnants and remains. The site was somehow associated with traumatic experiences (see for example, Clark 2015; Richard 2009; Trigg 2009), which could be another defining characteristic, but it was not directly traumatic. The site was not itself a site of torture or death, but it could have potentially brought it. The state of decay that the site was in during the period under discussion can be seen as a symbol of the collapse of the Soviet regime and the advent of a new socio-political reality in which the soldiers of the largest armies in the world became homeless.

2. Collapse of an Empire

Borne Sulinowo was originally constructed as a clandestine military installation by the German military in the 1930s. In 1935, the polygon encompassed an area of 18,690 hectares (Borne Sulinowo 2023). The town, designated as Groß Born, was utilized as a training ground and barracks for the Wehrmacht. On 19 and 20 August 1938, Adolf Hitler visited the site during the large-scale maneuvers (Borne Sulinowo 2023). In this location, units belonging to Guderian’s Panzer Division were assembled in advance of the September attack on Poland. In an artificially created desert environment, units of the Afrikakorps, under the command of General Rommel, conducted training exercises on the training ground in preparation for the Battle of Africa. Subsequent to the conclusion of World War II, the town was occupied by the Soviet Army and subsequently served as a military base, representing a Soviet exclave within Poland. It was excluded from cartographic representations and remained inaccessible to Polish citizens until the early 1990s.3 In the neighboring town of Kłomino, missile forces were stationed, and it is probable that nuclear weapons were stored in bunkers in the nearby forest. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the Ground Forces remained under the command of the Commonwealth of Independent States until its formal abolition on 14 February 1992.

In the period between 8 April 1991 and 17 September 1993, a total of 60,000 soldiers of the Northern Army Group of the Russian army were stationed in Poland. During this period, over 1500 tanks and combat vehicles, 400 guns and mortars, more than 300 aircraft and helicopters, and 500,000 tons of combat assets were transported out of Poland. The process was complex and protracted. The Russian military was responsible for facilitating the departure of military units from East Germany through Polish territory. They were also aware of the lack of housing for the soldiers and their families in Russia. The troops were departing with evident reluctance, as they perceived the quality of life in the West to be significantly superior to that which they could anticipate in their homeland. The date of the evacuation’s conclusion, 17 September, was notable for its proximity to the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939.

The evacuation process in Borne Sulinowo was concluded on 21 October 1992, with the departure of approximately 15,000 soldiers, their families, and other civilians and the subsequent assumption of control by the Polish army (Czerniawski 2016, p. 105). In December 1991, journalist Jacek Hugo-Bader gained access to Borne Sulinowo, where Soviet troops had not yet fully withdrawn. However, the barracks and the town were already in a state of considerable disrepair. The barracks that had been occupied by conscripts, as well as villas and apartment buildings where professional officers and their families, civilian army employees, teachers, shop assistants, doctors, and nurses lived, appeared to have been vacated with haste, as though they had departed only recently. Soviet newspapers, letters to soldiers, bent spoons, old razors, crumpled military manuals, and books not returned to the garrison library were strewn throughout the area. In one room, he saw a considerable quantity of gas masks with canisters, while in another, a substantial number of old military boots with the uppers removed. In the halls and corridors, the remnants of discarded garments were strewn about, including uniforms and bedding, as Hugo-Bader noted in his account (Hugo-Bader 2024).

Prior to the official reopening of the town in April 1993, there were only five residents, including a priest and a proprietor of a local bar (Kurylczyk and Lubińska 1993). However, the scene that greeted them was one of utter devastation. The forest had been extensively burned, the area was devoid of any vegetation, and the atmosphere was pervaded by an eerie silence. As asserted by historian Tomasz Skowronek, even the avian population was absent from the area (Wirtualna Polska 2024). Another documentary depicted windows that had been either boarded up or bricked in, with newspapers visible in some instances. (A Badion 2017). The most striking were the piles of metal objects. In the basements of the apartment buildings, there were considerable quantities of electrical outlets and bathroom fixtures, including porcelain. (At the same time, people recalled a beautiful heath on the former airfield: “The Russkis (Russians) left the moors so beautiful, they just really won’t ever be as beautiful as they used to be then,” (After: Demski and Czarnecka 2015, p. 99) they said.

Władysław Kaźmierczak recalls that his first visit to the town was on 1 May 1993 (another meaningful date), following the departure of Russian troops. The 4-kilometer road through the forest was particularly challenging to navigate, as it was falling apart. The post-German concrete slabs were severely deteriorated, and to avoid falling into a hole or running into a protruding bar, the journey had to be completed in approximately half an hour. The first striking image was that of a small cemetery, where a sculpture of a hand with an automatic machine gun stood in the center. This cemetery was for civilians, for children.4 The entire town was fenced off, and the entry was controlled at gates that slid open on metal guides. Affixed to the gray metal gate was a large red star. The town was under the protection of Polish military personnel. They guarded the fuel tanks and giant piles of scrap metal and other things that the Russians had left behind. The soldiers reported the presence of packs of hungry dogs that had been left by their former owners in the fall of 1992: “The sight of Borne Sulinowo was terrifying, and the town’s actual history, which had recently been learned, further confounded the understanding of the situation. The traces of an ideology that did not exist anymore, were both beautiful and degraded,” recalls Kaźmierczak (Kaźmierczak 2024a). As Georg Simmel wrote: “Such places, sinking from life, still strike us as settings of a life.” (Simmel 1965, p. 261). In contrast to the construction of nuclear ruins in the United States during the Cold War (see Masco 2013), the site in question had been kept in secret. As Ann Laura Stoler notes: “Such infrastructures of large and small scale bear what captivated Walter Benjamin, the ‘marks and wounds of the history of human violence.’” (Stoler 2013, p. 22). As the reaction to what he encountered, the artist spontaneously presented two performances during his first visit to the place, using materials that he had in the car and the ones he found on the site. It was not documented.

3. React

Kaźmierczak started his first performance at noon. It commenced in an unoccupied, poorly lit, and malodorous basement that was partially inundated with water. The artist carried two to three meters of strings on his body, clothes, and pockets. These strings were used to tie and drag various military, civilian, and propaganda items found along the route from the barracks to a railroad siding, passing through apartment blocks and the so-called Garrison Officer House. It was a large building at Pile Lake constructed by the Germans from 1935 to 1936 for representational purposes. There was a casino, restaurant, and concert hall. The officers and sub-officers of the Wehrmacht were also trained in the building. At the core of the edifice was a pediment, adorned with a tympanum that featured a bas-relief depiction of a knight on horseback and the date “1936.” A second, more impressive bas-relief was located at the center of the park façade. It depicted Diana hunting a deer. During the Soviet era, the edifice was designated as the “Garrison Officer House.” At the time, the institution boasted a library, cinema, theater, dance and concert halls, and a local television transmitting TV programs from Moscow. Subsequently, the space was populated by propaganda posters and 8 mm film tapes. The railroad siding was located next to a vast scrap heap, containing items left by evacuated individuals from the military base. The performance began with constructing, accumulating, and complicating meanings by adding new, often degraded or broken objects to the string. Upon reaching the scrap heap, the second phase of the performance unfolded, significantly influenced by the spontaneous actions of other artists who interacted with the objects on the heap. There was everything for people to live, for soldiers and officers for training. There were, among other things, armed new anti-tank mines, with fuses. The artist added various objects found on the heap until the strings were exhausted. Additionally, during the performance, he also carried a large branch with green leaves over his shoulder adorned with song lyrics by The Beatles, The Doors, and a Soviet bard, Vladimir Vysotsky, which were placed in various hidden and visible spots. The performance reached its conclusion with the songs being played from a car radio. The juxtaposition of Western and Soviet music, which had been considered anti-system at some point, highlights historical tensions, interweaving cultural narratives with military materialities. Thereafter, the artist placed all items into his vehicle, with the exception of the anti-tank mines, which he retrieved after a moment of reflection (Kaźmierczak 2024b; about Vladimir Vysotsky see Smith 1973). Objects like the anti-tank mines are not merely passive historical artifacts. They actively embody latent threats and potential energy, suggesting ongoing geopolitical tensions even in abandonment. Their presence challenges the dichotomy of past and present, revealing continuity through material potentiality.

On the same day, in the afternoon, Kaźmierczak presented a second spontaneous performance for a small group of other artists who came to explore the town. For a period of two hours, the performer engaged in interactions with objects that had been left behind by families or officers in abandoned apartments in Borne Sulinowo. The items observed included toys, newspapers, shaving items, cords, soap dishes, clips, aluminum forks, straw, torn-out radiators, stoves, electrical wires, old shoes, damaged mirrors, cast-iron bathtubs, broken toilet bowls, newspapers in windows, walls painted with glue paint, oil varnishes, photographs, notebooks, letters, plates with dried food, broken glasses, and more. Additionally, the apartments were found to contain a multitude of dead flies, destroyed wooden floors, thread, rags, frames, and kilims, all of which were discolored, dusty, and unclean. The performance underscored the lack of functionality and disarray of these objects, emphasizing the absence of their owners for over a year. The performance conveyed a profound sense of human tragedy, with an excess of privacy and residual memory of the military presence left behind. The performance revealed the agency of material objects and ruins and their dynamic entanglement with human histories, memories, and geopolitical realities. The objects used, through their material states, thus provoked affective responses independently of explicit human intention and provoked the need to comprehend the military apparatus. Jane Bennett would call them a “vibrant matter.” (Bennett 2010, pp. vii–xix). Kaźmierczak became a medium through which materialities expressed emotional realities, engaging observers in co-created experiences of empathy and collective mourning over historical trauma. As the author of Stuff Theory, Maurizia Boscagli, suggested, in a world without human presence—where no one is left to perceive or represent—the inanimate gains a form of agency. She specifically referred to clothing, but it can relate to any item used by the absent people, which, as she described, becomes the sole custodian of memory, carrying the traces of those who once possessed them in their absence (Boscagli 2014, p. 204).

The performance took place in several recently constructed four-story buildings constructed from a type of concrete known as the “great Leningrad slab,” which features decorative mosaic tiles. In the performance, the artist walked through the space, depositing his personal belongings alongside the found objects, which, in a sense, corresponded with those found. He initiated the process of removing and discarding his attire. Once he had disrobed, he applied a found shoe polish to his body. The facilities included fully equipped bathrooms, which still contained detergents but lacked water. Finally, he discovered rainwater in the basement of the barracks. He then proceeded to wash off the shoe polish with the stinky water and equally stinky “cleaning products,” and wiped himself with military foot wraps and some rags that he had found. Subsequently, he put on clean garments and footwear, yet residual evidence of his contact with the discovered items remained evident on his body (Kaźmierczak 2024b).

The artist’s reaction was based on the overwhelming experience of contact with the aforementioned remnants and ruined edifices. In accordance with Friedrich Schiller’s perspective, Małgorzata Nieszczerzewska proposed that derelict architectural structures evoke a profound sense of sentimentality, prompting contemplation and functioning as emblems of absence. These structures elicit a distinctive ambivalence in individuals, prompting introspection and evoking a complex array of emotions: “The destroyed object, a product of culture, becomes a contemporary symbol of culture as ruin,” writes Nieszczerzewska (Nieszczerzewska 2015, p. 73). In this instance, the ruin in question pertains to the geopolitical structure as a whole—it represented the ruin of the Soviet empire. The artist was undoubtedly influenced by the awareness of the potential dangers that the presence of troops in the country could pose. In the aforementioned television program, historian Tomasz Skowronek recalls discovering an impressive map of the world with bulbs, which depicted the prospective military objectives of the Warsaw Pact armies (Wirtualna Polska 2024).

4. Repair

On 5 June 1993, the gates of the town were opened during an official ceremony (Małolepszy 1993). At this juncture, the Polish population commenced the process of resettlement through the drawing of lots organized by the municipal authorities, which determined the allocation of apartments (Łazarewicz et al. 1993). The process of repair and reclamation commenced. The process of cleansing the town and the items discovered therein of their military associations was exemplified by the actions of Brian Connolly, entitled Frieze Frame. The performance took place during the inaugural Castle of Imagination Performance Art Festival, held in a Teutonic Knights castle in Bytów, Poland, in June 1993. In the performance, the artist employed twenty enamel bowls, selected from the hundreds that had been discarded in the forest: “These bowls contained an unknown and unidentifiable substance (perhaps remnants of food), I felt they were symbolic of the degradation I encountered in the city,” (Connolly 2024a) recalls Connolly. One could say that their materiality actively evoked notions of contamination, decay, and memory of past violence. He proceeded to fill the bowls with rainwater and place them along the length of the Castle’s corridor, opposite each window. He thus used a natural element that interacted dynamically with human-made objects, creating an interplay of purification and pollution. He then poured flour onto each window ledge and placed twenty-two napkins and firelighter cubes between each window. He also placed a round slice of bread under the arch of every window frame. Finally, the artist stapled two short lengths of the film found in Borne Sulinowo, one on top of the other. The spectators could hardly see it, but the film depicted a missile frame by frame penetrating a tank, followed by an explosion, and a close-up of a radio operator reacting to a sudden loud noise above his head. To start, the performer knelt in the corridor before the first bowl, washing his face and hands. Turning to the window ledge, he pressed his face and hands into flour, leaving negative impressions. A lighter cube was placed in a bowl of water and set on fire. The performer then produced a double strip of film, holding it frame by frame in front of the flame to illuminate the images. Two frames were cut off and burnt in the bowl of water. Next, a slice of bread was taken from the window, toasted black over the flame, and placed above the face print on the window ledge. The performer stood up, faced the audience at the end of the corridor, and made a silent, wide-mouthed scream, cracking the drying flour on his face. This process was repeated at each of the twenty-two windows, during which time the sun set and the corridor darkened. The performer aimed to connect the twenty-two windows, the corridor, and the film frames with the bowls and bread, forming a framed visual sequence: “In the performance, it was my intention to allude to environmental pollution and spiritual degradation,”5 recalls Connolly. In this performance, the ecological context manifested with the greatest clarity, and the approach to nature is indicative of the 1990s. As an art critic, Jan Avgikos has observed that the phenomenon under consideration is more akin to natura naturata than natura naturans (Avgikos 1991). The concept of destroyed nature necessitates our intervention to preserve and nurture it, rather than perceiving it as a mere creative force. This phenomenon is emblematic of the 1990s in Eastern Europe, a region that underwent substantial industrialization and militarization in the aftermath of World War II. In that period, artists demonstrated a notable inclination to engage with environmental themes in their work.

Connolly’s act of transferring the objects into an art context can be seen as a form of “repair,” whereby he transformed the elements of degradation into symbols of renewal. In the original context, the remaining materials were directly associated with the narrative of military occupation. In the context of the Castle (as a venue and as an event), the objects were transformed into abstract symbols that conveyed a narrative critique or reflection on the historical and political realities. The objects used during a performance subsequently become relics of the performance itself. Similarly, in a manner analogous to their longevity in the context of the Soviet military presence at the secret base, these objects have become enduring remnants of the performance, serving to preserve the memory and significance of the ephemeral event.

5. Reclaim

Ruins are sites where the debris of human activity is in the process of being reabsorbed by nature. The word “reclaim” from Sean Taylor’s film was, however, rather a call addressed to Polish citizens. The final performance that I would like to refer to was Władysław Kaźmierczak’s Кoнец фильма, which the artist performed several times. I decided to choose the one from the Irish Days symposium held in a seaside resort in Ustka, Poland, on 16 July 1994. The performance was held at the Baltic Art Gallery, which is housed in a former 19th-century granary. The objects from Borne Sulinowo began their existence as part of the performance as evidence of oppression, vehicles of ideology, and symbols of a system that claimed millions of human lives. The artist was dressed in black, with black leather gloves. He commenced with the gesture of a clenched fist, which was intended to symbolize protest, dissent, rebellion, or a farewell to the remnants of a Soviet presence in Poland. He sat with minimal movement in a chair positioned in the center of the room, directing his gaze towards the wall, where a reproduction of an artwork depicting a large sailing ship with a small red flag was displayed. The hammer and sickle were rendered almost imperceptible to the viewers. The reproduction, suspended on a slender wire, exhibited slight movement due to the action of a robust fan positioned in proximity, directing air into the “sails” of a military unit from the nascent stages of the Revolution. A metal-framed light bulb was suspended between the artist and the reproduction. A microphone was positioned in proximity to the reproduction, recording the sound of water droplets, the act of washing, and the artist’s breathing. The artist, seated, proceeded to extract a series of items from a black plastic bag. These items, originating from Borne Sulinowo, encompassed a diverse range of objects, including household items and military photographs. He proceeded to wash the photographs in a bucket of water, subsequently scattering them throughout the gallery. The physical act of washing photographs implies an effort to cleanse and reinterpret these historical artifacts, acknowledging their presence but attempting to remove their oppressive residues. This effectively transformed them into mere historical artifacts. To the right of the artist, situated towards the rear of the exhibition space, was a large video projector screen. The screen displayed a video recording of the sea, accompanied by the sounds of waves and wind. The video of the sea reminded of how Hyden White summarized Reinhardt Koselleck’s vision of history, namely that “the historical process is marked by a distinctive kind of temporality different from that one found in nature.” (White 2002, p. xii). In the concluding phase of the performance, the artist retrieved a tape from his bag bearing the inscription “Кoнец фильма” [The End of the Movie]. The tape was approximately half an hour in length and comprised a single frame. He then proceeded to cut off a section of the tape and discard it into a bucket. He proceeded to wrap the washed rolls of film tape around his head. Subsequently, he proceeded to soak a sizable sponge, procured from a military base, in water. Thereafter, he elevated his right hand and proceeded to pour the water onto himself. This action was both a gesture of protest and a form of purification. He then proceeded to repeat the action with his left hand. After the completion of the gesture of saying farewell and forgetting, he proceeded to grasp a lighted bulb in his hand and illuminate himself from a distance that was notably close. The background of the walls and the screen manifested peculiar, abstract shadows. There was a profound disconnection from reality, objects, and tangible images, as well as a negation of the self. The light intervention sought to invalidate the vestiges of imperialist violence. Subsequently, he proceeded to bend slowly down and dip the light bulb into a bucket of water. The bulb imploded when it touched the water, and the resulting electrical short circuit caused other technical equipment to stop. Subsequently, a period of silence and darkness ensued (Based on Kaźmierczak 2024c): “The film ended.” The personal reclamation process was thus completed.

6. Conclusions

It is not uncommon for performance artists to utilize everyday objects as props. The significance of these objects typically emerges from their artistic intention. In the aforementioned performances, the utilized objects were highly specific ruins, remnants, and remains that originated from a particular location. These objects served as concrete connections to the past, encapsulating the narratives and recollections of the recently concluded era. These remnants endured in the collective cultural memory, and the performances grappled with these persisting influences. In some cases, the objects were destroyed during the performance, as was the case with the tape from Кoнец фильма. In other instances, the objects gained the status of performance art relics whose meaning after the performance ends is secondary, as this kind of art is always “here and now.” They stopped being objects of an imperialist ideology. The detailed narratives of artists such as Władysław Kaźmierczak and Brian Connolly demonstrate how the remnants of military occupation were repurposed to examine themes of degradation, renewal, and historical memory. Through their work, these artists documented the intellectual and emotional processes they underwent after encountering the peculiar site and learning its history. The described performances also illustrate how the ephemeral nature of performance art reflects the transient quality of ruins and emphasizes the fleeting aspects of political power.

This article aimed to address the paucity of research on the subject of ruins, remnants, and remains in performance art. The expansion of comparative studies to encompass other post-Soviet contexts would contribute to a more profound comprehension of how diverse regional histories influence performance art practices. Secondly, further exploration into the ecological implications of ruin-based performances could yield insights into how art negotiates environmental concerns within post-industrial and militarized landscapes. Finally, longitudinal studies examining evolving interactions between local communities and performance art inspired by historical ruins could offer valuable perspectives on collective memory, identity formation, and cultural heritage preservation. These potential trajectories would continue to enrich scholarly discourse on the intersection of performance, materiality, and historical consciousness.