A series of self-portraits "To Be at Sword’s Points" (2016-2019) is part of the "Inciting Force" project. The images printed on metal plates are gesture frames of the author's performance, which has a verified drama, where each previous “frame” is a continuation and development of the next. In the series, the symbolism of metal is important, which the artist repeatedly uses in her works as a conceptually expressive material; the number and numerological arrangement of the plates - "frames" (there are 11 plates in total) are also determined in the series.
Using a multi-layered structural-semiotic language, Zhanna Gladko, in her series of self-portraits, examines and transcodes well-known cultural symbols, icons that have emerged in art, literature, cinema, mass media,

as well as mythological symbols, superstitions associated with various phenomena, replicated in society as a stereotype.
In the series "On Knives" it is the symbolism of weapons (swords, daggers); typical stable expressions: "on knives", "knife behind the back", "on the edge of a knife", "like a knife on", "knife in", etc .; superstitions: "cutting the hair with a knife", "knife on the table", "crossed knives", etc.

In 2019, the series was supplemented with an installation with knives, on which expressions were printed, characteristic of modern femme, queer, gender discourse, emphasizing conflict, fragmentation, polarity, and at the same time the layering and mixing of various critical fields.