October 8, 2022 // 15 Uhr
Panel discussion:
"The Labor of Witnessing"
The Labor of Witnessing is a conversation between art historian Asia Bazdyrieva, media and information theorist Svitlana Matviyenko, and artist Dariia Kuzmych. The three of them, with different proximity to the Russian attack on Ukraine, have been reflecting, writing, and articulating — through words or images — the convoluted nature of the current war, the place and the role of text, image, and body that produces them. Asia Bazdyrieva's war diaries were focusing on the embodied experience of a person, reduced to the size of the bomb shelter and communication devices, while reflecting on the material implications of this war and Ukraine-as-territory in the transnational nod of energetic speculations and colonial projections. Svitlana Matvienko's war dispatches provided a commentary on the current war as a case of a cyberwar, where it was not the only territory that was under attack but also the epistemological structures and the construction of information. Dariia Kuzmych's practice has been long focused on the embodiment of memory and trauma, and in her recent work, she has been focusing on the current escalation of the war and therefore a new layer of historical events that leave their imprints in bodies and lands.
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October 15, 2022 // 1 - 5 pm & 7 pm
Symposium:
"Nova Generatsiia: before and after"
The symposium focuses on the artists around the magazine Nova Generatsiia (New Generation), which represents the Ukrainian avant-garde of the 1920s and 30s and thus the generation of the so-called "Executed Renaissance" (also: "Red Renaissance"). The journal, which appeared from 1927 to 1930, joined the modernist movement, which was current at the time, and practiced an international exchange with artists, writers, and architects. Its members traveled frequently to Europe, especially Germany, at the behest of the Communist Party. The cultural workers were convinced of the communist idea. Despite their positive attitude towards Moscow as the capital of the revolution, many of them were sentenced to death. How did it come about?
Since a deeper, critical examination of this complex topic was not possible during the Soviet era, there are still numerous gaps internationally in relation to the reappraisal of this part of European cultural history. It was in the last few years that Nova Generatsiia and other Avantgarde movements have increasingly become the focus of both Ukrainian and international research institutions. Since the Russian attack on Ukraine, this research and the accompanying work on a self-determined, de-colonial historiography from Ukraine's self-sufficient perspective has been taking place under changed conditions, namely in opposition to Russia's destruction of Ukraine’s cultural heritage.
Contributors: Borys Filonenko, Kateryna Iakovlenko, Yaryna Tsymbal // Moderated and by Katia Ulianova
Film Screening: Slovo House (Ukraine, 2017) by Taras Tomenko
What is the history of the famous Slovo House in Kharkiv? Taras Tomenko follows this question in his fascinating documentary film, which is based on various documentary materials, photographs, and historical film footage. For his research the film team was allowed to use archives from University’s and other institutions, such as the one of the Security Service of Ukraine. “Slovo House” tells the story of a building project, realized by writers, poets together with architects in the 1920s, providing living space to 60 artists, which later in time become known as the “Executed Renaissance”.
(The place of the screening will be announced soon.)
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