Warfare of Art & Law Podcast
Warfare of Art and Law Podcast sparks conversation about the intriguing – and sometimes infuriating – stories that arise in the worlds of art and law with artist and attorney Stephanie Drawdy.
Warfare of Art & Law Podcast
Artist Marina Heintze on Art, Activism and the Holocaust
Link here to learn more about Marina Heintze.
Show Notes:
1:00 Heintze’s background in the arts
2:30 sculptures of Heintze's father
3:30 Heintze’s use of materials
5:30 current events addressed in Heintze’s work
6:20 Politics series – gerrymandering
7:25 Bullet proof vests – assassinations and deviseness
7:45 Holocaust addressed in her work like “Gentian Violet Violence”
8:30 "Yitler” and “Dog Whistle” pieces
9:50 Heintze’s family research that led her to work with bone planters
11:20 archival research used in her work
13:35 "The eyes are the windows to the neshama/soul"
15:20 Lure series regarding nefarious organizations
19:50 how/whether her works address justice/injustice
21:50 work related to B2 bombers
22:50 Tunnel Talk / Vision series
27:25 feedback on Tunnel Talk / Vision series
31:40 Banksy image removed from Royal Courts of Justice
34:15 Holocaust denial and free speech
36:40 Alan Robertshaw – importance of work on the Holocaust
38:45 David Irving v Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt – 1996 UK Judgment
42:20 facts of genocide/terrorist acts
48:10 camouflage IP
50:30 design of Arab nation flags
Please share your comments and/or questions at stephanie@warfareofartandlaw.com
Music by Toulme.
To hear more episodes, please visit Warfare of Art and Law podcast's website.
To leave questions or comments about this or other episodes of the podcast and/or for information about joining the 2ND Saturday discussion on art, culture and justice, please message me at stephanie@warfareofartandlaw.com.
Thanks so much for listening!
© Stephanie Drawdy [2025]
children. Yeah, yeah, sorry, sure it's a multi-rology, actually it's. It's hard to talk about that. It's not, you know, an exhibition, fools well, an exhibition in the complete meaning, in the sense, on the full sense of the word, because it's a rather a place of commemoration, place where people just come and it only has a video with the names of the children killed by the Russians, names each and place where they were killed, that's all it's. It's rather not an exhibition is people just come and bring toys and there's a tree, but it's the tree tree it was. It looks like a burned down, you know, because without children, the tree of life, it stops growing. Just just one more simple, sorry, still cannot talk. You know, on some of the topics I cannot always verbalize, you know there are a lot of emotions.
Speaker 1:Key region was the occupied on April 1st and they went to the settlements, to the occupied settlements on April 2nd and she meeting was the occupied on April 2nd. So the trip to Chimew started April 3rd and lasted over a week and they gathered the artifacts they could find. It was both the artifacts and oral history. They recorded the, you know, as long as the memories are fresh, they recorded the recollections of people regarding, well, what happened to them during occupation and that actually, these artifacts, they became the basis. We understood that we have all these artifacts now we have to exhibit them now, we have to show them to the world. So that's how it all started. Yes, because one one thing you see it in media, you know in video coverage or in pictures but quite another thing when you see all these artifacts right in front of you and you can feel, you can get immersed in the yeah and what's going on? With one main message yes, there always should come light.
Speaker 1:The symbols of the invaders. Now they keep using the same symbols, they keep fighting for the same symbols. They associate themselves with the Soviets, with the Soviet army, although they almost know nothing about that. I mean, it's just, I don't know empty symbols for that, it's just propaganda. We found some military helmets with a star and laying in written on top of it, and it was like a helmet of a 20 year old boy. I mean, what do you know? What can you know about being an overstart? They keep using this five corner star. And not only is it really satan, slightly satanic, you know, simple, if we're talking about as a cherub, but it also for Ukraine. It symbolizes the humanitarian regime Ukraine suffered from. It suffered greatly. We thought we had insurgent army fighting for Ukrainian independence until late 60s. So you know, it's for us, it's some kind of it, not a label like a label, but a sign of a something really bad that happened in our history.
Speaker 1:And boots, they were also often used in Soviet propaganda. You could see these huge pictures where comics not really comics, but propaganda material where you could see this huge boot, you know, stepping on someone's land and they will fight bourgeois, will fight, fight NATO, etc. We are strong and it was like a symbol of invasion even then in the Soviet Union. And at the same time we wanted to show that these boots, they overstepped all boundaries. So this star is as a symbol of propaganda and a threshold, I believe, border line, red line. You know that they crossed. They crossed all red lines that they ever could, you know, think of. So it's, yeah, it's complicated symbol.
Speaker 1:But people often ask where do they, these boots, come from? I mean, did you take them off the dead people, etc. And we keep saying that no, we found them on the, the occupied territories. They were just left there by Russian soldiers and we had one visitor and he's a really renowned in Europe cultural sociologist, sociologist of culture, pascal Gillian, and he's studying now, researching a pacifism in Europe and the ways that Europeans why didn't they not acknowledge how violent and how obnoxious all this, this war, is? And he kept asking well, why are they taking off these boots? I mean it's not logical, why do they leave them behind? And a Yuri Savchuk, because well, he was present there when they were collected these boots, he said, well, we even have pictures how they lead them. They leave them in Ukrainian backyards, in Ukrainian houses, private houses, because they switch boots, the moon. The moment they get into the house and they get an opportunity for looting. They just switch boots to better ones, to Nike, adidas, the ones Ukrainians had in their houses, in their homes. And Pascal Gillian was thinking well, maybe they were trying to flee in civilian clothes. And we said, no, no, they were not trying to flee in civilian clothes. You know the European citizen well, he tries to explain it with some kind of a logic, but there is no logic to that. You know, they switched boots because it's easier for them, it's more comfortable for them to go on killing us, but these boots are much more comfortable it for doing so.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, and sort of a night when I believe in that. Well, yeah, one of the artifacts is absolutely mind blowing for me personally and I believe, for most of the people. It's an apple tablet that one of the Russian soldiers it was actually found, yes, on a dead body. And well, he looted this apple tablet and he switched in his vest, protective vest, he took out the shield from the metal shield, you know, and he put this tablet inside because, well, he had no pockets or something else to hide this tablet. So he, well, actually, he risked his life, you know, by taking off his vest and putting all these things on him. Well, that's what killed him, because that tablet is shot through, has been shot through. Yeah, greed kills sometimes. It's for them, they're stages and they're a sense of power.
Speaker 1:And why are they the reason why they are actually targeting their cultural heritage? They are targeting it precisely because we see that, for instance, there's the National Museum, literary and Memorial Museum of Skvarda in Ukraine, and it's one of the most beloved philosophers in Ukraine in the 18th century. He was like a Ukrainian hippie, well-educated hippie of the 19th century, and they precisely targeted the state where he was buried and it was like his 300 years anniversary. Thank you, it's really great that the artifacts were all evacuated, but the state is completely burned down and there is no military infrastructure around. No, no, any infrastructure around, not even civil, civilian infrastructure. It's a small village where there's nothing around. So we know they're targeting it, we know that they are targeting Skvarda and the targeting Kievan Rus' period, and the reason for that is when we had well, right now I can see through my window key of Pichersk, lavra. It's our shrine and you know, it's like the sacred place for Ukrainians. It's a complex of monasteries that were found in 11th century, middle, mid 11th century, and when we lost one of our battles for independence 300 years ago, that's the first thing, the first location they took. And now we're trying to. You know, even now we are trying to bring Moscow religion out of this place. Even now we are fighting for Ukraine and services to be there, whatever is older than their state.
Speaker 1:Our statehood was already established the Kievan Rus', in 11th century and the 12th century. Our princesses, they married the kings in Europe the Swedish king, french king and we had our writing already. We had huge libraries and they had nothing at that point. And one of the most interesting facts is their most cherished icon, volodymyr, a holy mother, is looted. It's a looted icon from actually from Kiev, when they first came in the 12th century. And it was looted from Kiev and it was a Vyzhurod holy mother. They just renamed it and they had it as, like, one of the most valuable icons. So it's a tradition, you know, it's a Russian habit for ages, and what they cannot looted is true.
Speaker 1:But I was surprised that, for instance, families come, you know, with small children and when I interact with them, I keep saying maybe you should not go into the basement, maybe you should not go into that shelter. You have small kids, maybe they should not see that. And people said, oh no, come on. We came here for the third time. We survived under occupation, we lived in such a basement in Butchha mostly you know Kiev region towns and we came here once again in order to relive it, in order to get rid of these memories, because once we see them in a museum, it allows us to distance ourselves from our personal memories. We understand that it was historical and it has a meaning, but we distance, we understand it's like a national scope and it's not only our personal pain and it helps us psychologically.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, ivan Kiviyat was one of the first museums. Yes, one of our first losses, ivan Kiviyat Museum, and it is all burned down, but most of the exhibits, well, at least Maria Kiviyatchenko, they're saved by the locals. The thing is, they came really fast and that gave no chance to hide these artifacts. You know, just no chance One day. And they're here in most of the regions Chernihiv, kherson, eastern Ukraine. Yes, it was like in a day, unfortunately sometimes. Well, it's not only due to the unpreparedness, but also because of craters and well, it's complicated matters. Any worries, but they came really fast. We realized that under threat are southern regions Chernihiv region, which was already almost occupied and the city of Chernihiv was under siege. Luhansk region, donetsk region well, yes, and Kherson. In Sumy region, russians made their headquarters there in the museum because it's a lovely estate of 19th century. German built really more nice estate. It's a cultural heritage site burned down, actually now focused on presenting evidence because we thought there would be the building for the tribunals, so we wanted to show the representatives at the UN what it all looks like and the doors.
Speaker 1:The doors are from Yahidne. Yahidne is a small village in Chernihiv, on the border of Chernihiv, close to Kiev region, where over 300 people were kept in a basement for over a month, almost without an opportunity to get out to the ground level. They were kept there, they were tortured and they, as you can understand, had really almost nothing to eat, nothing to drink. They were let outside, sometimes in order to collect water from the, to the snow, you know, and they melted it down. So they had water. And the doors because the people, they had no calendars and the cell phones were taken away. All the devices were taken away from there then in order for them not to communicate with the outer world. So these people kept track. It's a calendar on these doors. It's a calendar in the centerpiece. The center of these doors is the calendar where they marked days as they perceived. You know, the day change because not always they were let out and not always they could understand whether well, did the sound go down? Or is it not the calendar? But on the side of the wall, on the left side, to the left side of the wall, there are name, last names, of people killed by the Russians from this basement. Oh, just shut down, gun down. And to the right. It's a list of people who went mad and died. So, yeah, it's not only a door, it's evidence.
Speaker 1:Now we tried to show that we reconstructed it all. There were tunnels in that shelter and Kadyrovskaya I wouldn't like to call them Chechens because they're not Chechens, they're representatives of the Chechen government, which is not actually the same Kadyrovskaya they kept them inside as well. They would not let them go out. There were over 200 people there. It's a really small space, you know, and a really tight space. They had no light. They also had to take snow to have water, but sometimes Kadyrovskaya would bring them something and they wouldn't shoot at least they wouldn't shoot anyone. And we even have, you know, a bottle of champagne which some pair In this shelter.
Speaker 1:You can see what people took from their homes when they realized they might not come back, you know, into their flats and they would have to do the most precious things for them. Someone took pictures, someone took toys you could not take a lot, you know. You just took like really small things, the ones you could carry. And someone took a bottle of champagne, a pair actually, and it was like for the 50 years anniversary of the pair, and you could see that. Well, they celebrated the anniversary. Yeah, they succeeded in celebrating the old condition of the Chechen. We finally got it open, yeah, so yeah, well, you know, I do not really believe in vengeance and I never believed in it and it hasn't changed, although I lost a few friends.
Speaker 1:I do not believe vengeance would be, would be, a right thing to do. But I believe those who committed crimes and those who seemingly are innocent but they made someone else commit the crimes, they should be punished and they should be punished officially by law. But at the same time, I believe that you know many international agreements, the Gauhawk Convention. Well, it does not work, unfortunately it doesn't work. All these documents that were formed after the Second World War. They do not work because they rely on the adequacy of the aggressor. For instance, you can have restitution, you know, as long as the other side agrees to that. But, as you can understand, no Russian would agree for any kind of restitution or compensation. No, nothing like that is possible. It's unreal.
Speaker 1:The international criminal justice system, I believe, should get reviewed and changed. Well, under these circumstances, because we see that that doesn't work. The evidence we present, you know, it's mostly for people. It cannot be used in criminal court. And I had a working trip to Holland a month ago and we met with the prosecutor at the Hark court and he said well, please acknowledge that you have to have so much evidence in order to, you know, prosecute at least one case. And well, this situation here, well, you cannot collect evidence. Now you can collect museum artifacts, risk in your life, but you cannot collect evidence and the criminal justice system requires a lot of evidence. And I acknowledge that if those guilty will be punished any time, it won't be in the nearest future. But at the same time, I think that you know the global community and specifically the museum community and cultural activists, those working in culture. They should help in prosecuting Russians because they should acknowledge the fact that it's not Putin. It's not Putin who's the only one guilty to know these people commit crimes on a global scope.
Speaker 1:You know these troops. They are simple Russians. They are Russians from small towns, from villages. They are not, mostly they are not army, the official army, mostly they are not. They've been mobilized from some kind of settlement, you know, in Siberia or in Central Russia. They are merely typical representatives of Russian society and we should acknowledge that and we should acknowledge that the director of the Hermitage Museum, who justifies what is going on, well, he should be, you know, at least punished by opinions of his colleagues, by friends, no one wishing to collaborate with him, etc.
Speaker 1:But we still see Russia in ICOM, we still see Russia in UN, and well, that is that bothers me, because I see no perspective of getting any kind of satisfaction in the nearest future. No justice, maybe the justice, you know the justice will be a Russian Empire, because it is an empire, it still is a Russian Empire collapses. Maybe that would be some kind of justice for them If all these you know small nations, if they gain their independence, because there are a lot of, you know ethnic minorities willing and they had their statehood at some point in history and they are willing to have their independence. But that might be some kind of small satisfaction for us. And I just wanted to say one more thing that when I said the Russian Empire, I reminded me of one of the artifacts we have on this exhibition.
Speaker 1:It was collected by the Director General, by Yuriy Svachuk, in Khrisun. Khrisun was deoccupied on November 11th and he drove there on November 13th and we are, you know, even slightly joking that the special forces were not all in the town yet when he was there collecting artifacts, but what he brought back was a flag, a flag, what they wanted to make, a state flag, republic flag of the Khrisun National Republic, and you could see the eagle, the Russian eagle. You know the Russian Empire's main symbol and the Soviet symbols incorporated in that. So it's such a it's not a chaos, it's deliberately composed symbols, joint symbols from the Russian Empire and from the Soviet Union, like you know, the continuity of the empire. And that flag is fascinating for me personally. There are some people sitting there, and you know, designing all that consciously and uniting all these symbols. We're not afraid of definitions. You, you, you, you, you, you, you.