Ilya Chichkan was born in 1967 in Kiev, Ukraine. His artistic works are particularly concerned with staged photography and film, alongside of which he places apart the theme of figure and object mutation. These surreal picture worlds are often achieved with very simple means of clothing the figures and actors or the alienation of objects.
There is a story by Franz Kafka in which an ape makes a speech to an educated audience. Although it is a speech, it is also a test where the ape must show not only that he may speak the same language as those in the audience but he must also depict their manners to be allowed entry into their society.
