Introduction. Art in Ukraine Between Identity Construction and Anti-Colonial Resistance (original) (raw)

Decolonization and Disentanglement in Ukrainian Art

Post MoMA, 2022

In this text focused on how postcolonial and decolonial processes are reflected in contemporary Ukrainian culture, art historian Svitlana Biedarieva examines methods of decolonizing Ukrainian cultural discourse through the lens of works by contemporary Ukrainian artists—specifically those addressing complex aspects of identity conflicts actualized by Russia’s ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine. Each of the artworks analyzed here dismantles the notion of Ukraine’s postcolonial entanglements through discussions of memory, language, and trauma. Further, Biedarieva attempts to establish a new theoretical framework in which to understand Ukraine’s particular position on the world’s geopolitical map, taking into account the fading impact of Russian colonialism on Ukrainian territory.

Art Communities at Risk: On Ukraine

October , 2022

This text analyses the impact of Russia's war against Ukraine on Ukrainian art and features interviews with five Ukrainian artists: Alevtina Kakhidze, Maria Kulikovska, Lia Dostlieva, Andrii Dostliev, and Piotr Armianovski. The artists speak about their experiences of displacement and migration following the annexation of Crimea and the occupation of parts of Donbas in 2014 as well as their premonitions of the full-scale Russian invasion that was to come.

The Past Living in the Future: Ukrainian Politics of Memory in Visual Arts after Maidan

Switch on Paper, 2020

This paper examines the works of Ukrainian artists who comment on the politics of memory in Ukraine, with the main focus on the artistic work of Nikita Kadan, David Chichkan, and Zhanna Kadyrova, as well as the phenomenon of "Leninopad" - the demolition of monuments to Vladimir Lenin in Ukraine. Since the Maidan uprising in 2013/2014 and the subsequent attacks on the sovereignty and territory of Ukraine by Russia, there has been intense debate on how to interpret not only Ukraine’s dramatic present but also its complex and difficult past.

Eyewitness the Russian War in Ukraine: The Matter of Loss and Arts

Sociologica, 2022

Describing the first months of the full-scale Russian war in Ukraine, this article considers the materiality of art during the war: the destruction and appropriation of cultural heritage and infrastructure, the risk of being violent, and losing a life. Furthermore, this essay problematizes the value and symbolism of objects and art and speaks of artworks as a strategy of intellectual and historical resistance.

War and Revolution: Framing 100 years of Cultural Opposition in Ukraine

Exhibition Catalogue , 2018

An Exhibition by Dr. Orysia Kulick, Research Fellow in Ukrainian Studies, School of Languages, Cultures and Literatures, TCD. The last century of Ukrainian history has been shaped by war, revolution and the struggle for statehood. The Russian Revolution of 1917 swept away the Romanov dynasty, unleashing five years of social upheaval in the southwestern borderlands. The Euromaidan Revolution of 2014 precipitated Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of war in the Donbass. The decades in between saw civil war, famine, the Stalinist purges, mass repression and surveillance, as well as attempts by Soviet Ukrainians to reform and humanise socialism from within. Through striking works produced by several generations of writers and artists, this Exhibition on one hundred years of cultural opposition in Ukraine will provide visitors with a deeper understanding of Ukraine’s complex historical legacies, as well as various modes of cultural resistance. Featuring prominently will be reproductions of paintings, graphics, photographs, and texts produced by individuals, who fought for greater cultural and political autonomy for Ukraine within the Soviet system. The Exhibition ties struggles of the Soviet era to current events by showing images of human rights activists and political prisoners, many of whom served lengthy sentences in strict regime hard labour camps in Siberia in the 1960s and 1970s, participating in the protests of 2014. To give visual representation to the human costs of war and revolution, the Exhibition displays works by photographers Joseph Sywenkyj—a recent recipient of the prestigious W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography—and Anatolii Stepanov, who has spent the last four years photographing on the frontlines of the war in the Donbass.

In Ukraine, art is a bloodless weapon for democracy. The evidence of the Venice Biennale 2022

VAEIE Project (Values and Attitudes Education For Inclusive Europe), 2022

In times of brutal wars like that one against Ukraine it seems almost impossible to think about art. On the contrary, the war against Ukraine highlighted the importance, necessity and urgency of art as an effective, but bloodless, weapon for democracy and artists as political activists for democracy. The tributes to Ukrainian resistance ranged from art as propaganda to art as a reflection on freedom of expression, an integral component of democracy in any society and a protest against war