Corps Flottants
Ice installations in five cells
Journées du Patrimoine 2025
Venue: Ancienne gendarmerie, caves — La Ferté-Milon, France
Exhibition curators: Taisiya Krugovykh, Vasily Bogatov
Exhibition concept
In French, the verb « glacer », when applied to a person, can mean to be seized or paralysed by cold. Figuratively, it can also mean to freeze someone—to petrify them under the effect of an intense feeling of fear or horror.
When we, coming from Russia, visited the former gendarmerie and its cold cellars, we could think of only one thing: torture, which has become the norm in Russia.
When an object is frozen in ice, it is prevented from acting or causing harm. But this suspension is temporary, because the ice melts. Thawing becomes a rediscovery: a way of reviving memories and the memory surrounding these objects.
These two actions are contradictory and, at the same time, inseparable. Perhaps they also speak of a way to rescue these objects from the oblivion of seasons repeating in an endless cycle.
Cave 1 — Immersion heater
In April 2020 in Russia, Kejik Ondar, an orphan from the Republic of Tuva, was sentenced to three years in Angarsk penal colony No. 15 for stealing a horse.
During his imprisonment, the administration transferred him to a cell with so-called “developers” to force him to confess to starting a fire during a riot. They raped him with a switched-on immersion heater, rupturing his intestine and internal organs.
Since his release, Kejik Ondar has lived in a shepherds’ camp. He uses a stoma bag, has difficulty moving and is unable to work because of the injuries caused by torture.
Cave 2 — Bucket
Ildar Dadin took part in peaceful actions against the war in Ukraine, repression and police violence. For these and other actions, he was sentenced in December 2015 to three years in penal colony No. 7 in Karelia, northern Russia.
To put an end to his political activities, prison officers submerged him in toilet water to induce asphyxiation and terror. In his letters, Ildar described drowning in a bucket of water as one of the methods of torture and humiliation inflicted on prisoners.
In March 2022, after the beginning of Russia’s war against Ukraine, Dadin fought alongside the Ukrainian armed forces against Putin’s regime. He was killed in combat near Kharkiv, Ukraine, on 5 October 2024.
Cave 3 — File
Natalia Vlasova, a Ukrainian woman born in 1981:
“... I was taken at night to Izolyatsia, a secret prison in Russian-controlled Donetsk, nicknamed ‘the factory of death’ and run by Evdokimov. I asked to be shot rather than tortured, but Evdokimov replied that I had to suffer.
He filed my teeth, twisted my nipples and tried to force an entire bottle into my vagina. I should point out that he is considered a victim in our country. Meanwhile, his assistants began beating me from all sides.
Fifteen people came to have sex with me, and for the occasion I was even taken to the shower. In general, they were intoxicated.
The most frightening thing was that they said they knew which nursery my child attended. They threatened to bring the child a toy containing TNT. I knew they were capable of anything.”
On 24 December 2024, a Russian court accused Natalia Vlasova of terrorism, espionage and preparing an attack against prison officer Vasily Evdokimov. She was sentenced to 18 years and two months in prison.
Cave 4 — Russian national anthem, medical coagulator or five-litre water bottle
When the wounded Ukrainian soldier Andriy Pereverzev was captured and taken to a basement, he was struck on the head with a five-litre plastic bottle filled with water.
A few days later, he underwent surgery to close his wounds. When he woke, he discovered the words “Glory to Russia” and the letter Z—a symbol of support for the Russian army—tattooed on his stomach.
He was then transferred to a penal colony where, together with other prisoners, he was forced to sing the Russian national anthem.
Cave 5 — Mop and Burger King bag
On 20 January 2025, police officers in Moscow arrested Magomed Magomedov and forcibly detained him at the police station, compelling him to make the confession they wanted.
They struck him with a stun gun and forced a broom handle into his anus while placing a Burger King paper bag in his mouth.
During the victim’s medical examination, a piece of the rubber glove used in the assault fell from his anus.
Police management stated that the allegations of sexual violence committed against Magomedov “did not correspond to reality”.