Jura Shust is an artist who explores the relationship between traditional rituals and the escapism enabled by modern tools, examining how ancient mythological beliefs can integrate with contemporary technology. His work focuses on the connection between the human spirit and the natural world, which he examines through various artistic forms.
For the 15th Gwangju Biennale, Shust presents his multimedia project Neophyte, which explores how ancient traditions of communication with nature merge with contemporary technological advancements. Neophyte III revisits the traditional Slavic ceremony of the summer solstice Kupala depicting eight Belarusian refugees near the Belarusian border in Poland. According to Slavic myth, animals, trees, and herbs gain the gift of speech and movement when fire and water are invested with the power of purification and regeneration on the night of Kupala. This video presents a ritual as an ancient form of communication with the environment, exploring contemporary geopolitical tensions in the light of the Kupala rite of passage.

Leaving an Annual Growth at the Top: Succession illustrates the shift from the archaic to the synthetic by featuring eight discarded Christmas tree trunks locked into the metal cluster, referring to both structures of care and exploitation. The ancient tradition of ritualistic branch cutting is rooted in the connection between ancestors and descendants, where receivers can read the message encoded in a living tree. Inspired by ancient Slavic tree worship practices, the installation metaphorically represents a sacred grove that ancient Slavs would use like a temple to connect to the cosmological nature of the universe.

The Untitled series of panels is machine-sculpted out of spruce wood with phytomorphic reliefs generated by an AI, filled with soil, and encased in synthetic resin afterward. Using the metaphor of bio-neurological connections or root systems, this series displays the architecture of a deep learning model as a fossilized imprint of a self-reflecting neural network. The idea of a disembodied spirit as an AI aligns with an ancient tradition of communing with animated nature observed in various Indigenous cultures. Recent advances in AI-powered sensation make communication with non-human species more plausible than ever, promising a challenge to an anthropocentric worldview while marking a new state of surveillance.