Biography

Elina Kulikova, (born in St. Petersburg, Russia) - theatre director, performance artist and writer; participant of international theatre festivals and laboratories. Graduate of the Liberal Arts and Sciences course at St. Petersburg State University and Bard College (NY, USA) in 2019 and the Master's programme at La Manufacture - Haute école des arts de la scène (Switzerland) in 2025. Participant of the PAUSE programme of the College de France (Program National d'accueil en Urgence des Scientifiques et des Artistes en Exile), member of the Atelier des Artistes en Exile in Paris and fellow of the Global Performance and Politics programme at Georgetown University Washington DC. 

As a performance artist, she focuses on interactive and immersive performances and installations that combine conceptual and processual approaches in the field of participatory art. She explores the boundaries of performative practice and creates multidisciplinary projects: performances for one audience member, week-long and month-long performances, site-specific and digital performances. After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, she left Russia and experienced political persecution for her anti-war stance. She has created an anti-war theatre thrilogy - Thrilogie de la Guerre, which is now touring Europe.

Artistic project

THE BLAST is a site-specific performance that explores nuclear anxiety through the physical and psychological spaces designed to contain it. A bunker is not just a historical artifact but an immersive, charged environment—a place where personal fear intersects with state policy. This performance does not seek to reenact historical fears but to examine how they shape the present, influencing architecture, policy, and individual perception.

I draw inspiration from experimental forms of performative research, such as Bruno Latour’s Terrestrial trilogy and Katie Mitchell’s documentary theatre (2071 with Chris Rapley, Ten Billion with Stephen Emmott), as well as my experience collaborating with Rimini Protokoll, whose work often engages with public spaces. Like these projects, THE BLAST integrates philosophical inquiry with real data, statistics, archival documents, and personal testimonies. The performance will incorporate text-based insertions, recorded voices, and video art, creating a multi-layered experience where factual evidence merges with emotional and sensory engagement.

The project begins in Switzerland, where public bunkers physically shape how nuclear anxiety is experienced. From there, I aim to extend it to countries without such shelters, like France, to highlight this absence and its implications. By placing the performance in contrasting contexts, THE BLAST questions the very notion of security—who has access to it, who defines it, and what invisible structures sustain it. Through this process, I seek to explore not only European perceptions and fantasies of nuclear catastrophe but also the psychological toll of living under its shadow.

Format: formative lecture / performance 

Size of audience: 100 to 200 people

Specific location: perfectly a real bunker

Timing / duration: 35 to 45 min