In June of 2022, NGO Cultural Traffic organised a series of pop-up residencies for artists and other creatives in the Carpathian Mountains, a relatively safe area in western Ukraine. Organized by Olena Kasperovych, an art curator from Kharkiv, the residencies did not require artists to create any “finished products” (artworks, exhibitions, texts), but instead offered them a space to recuperate artistically, physically and mentally.
In August 2022 CAP invited the participants of the pop-up residencies in Vyzhnytsa and Creative Rural Hub to reflect on their art and working process in the times of war. They discussed how they are processing displacement, grief and a sense of loss through art and text.
At the event, the participants also took part in a wider discussion on Ukrainian contemporary art and literature, allowing the audience to ask questions about particular works, creative processes and practices, the challenges and opportunities that arise in our understanding of Ukrainian art life and, finally, what this war means for a wider world of art and culture.
You can watch the event here:
You can read more about the artists below:
Volt Agapeyev
Volt Agapeyev (born in 1989, Ternopil, Ukraine) graduated from Ternopil Institute of Arts in 2012. In 2016 he got another degree in graphic design from the School of Visual Communication. Volt mostly works with drawings, murals & mixed-media art. He lives and works in Kyiv.
Kate Drozd is a brand and graphics designer from Ukraine. She specialises in calligraphy and illustration, spending the past 3 years developing visual identities for various businesses and projects in Kharkiv. She also developed a free font, Kharkiv Tone, which can be found on Behance.
Kate (born in Bahmut, Ukraine) graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the Kharkiv Academy of Design and Arts. She has been working as a freelance designer since 2018, participating in the following international artist events: Banda and Reface creative tabir (2021), Pole Makiv (2021), UkrArtNFT, Broadway Market London, Cultural Traffic Ukraine (2022), and Urban Sketchers Kharkiv.
She currently works with Lyuk.media, creating visuals for articles. As part of this cooperation, she made a printed newspaper and a guide to Kharkiv. She has also developed layouts and illustrations for the magazine PlyusMinusNeskinchennist (+-8), which writes about the local culture of Donbass. They are currently working on 2 issues about the creativity of Ukrainian artists during a large-scale war. In her free time, Kate volunteers, making fundraising visuals and posters for humanitarian aid projects.
She is engaged in visual studies of the cities Kharkiv, Vyzhnytsia, and Lviv.
Maksym Khodak (born 2001, Bila Tserkva) is a multi-media artist whose works explore themes of history, documentation, collective memory, urban transformations and a critical view on cinema and photography. The unifying theme across his work is a critical rethinking of the Soviet legacy.
Khodak studied Contemporary Arts at the Kyiv Academy of Media Arts. Now he continues his study on BA Film Study program in Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Kary University. Maksym is also a fellow of WHW Akademija 4th generation. In 2021, he received the Prince Claus Seed Award. Maksym Khodak has been shortlisted for PinchukArtCentre Prize 2022. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including exhibitions at the Voloshyn Gallery (2021), Kharkiv Municipal Gallery (2020), Rotor Centre for Contemporary Arts (2020) and Pasinger Fabrik (2019).
Alexander Krolikowski (born 1982, Donetsk, Ukraine) is a Ukraine-based multidisciplinary conceptual artist and was a student of Michael Hofstetter at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Inspired by his studies of post-postmodernism, Alexander has used various artistic mediums to explore the intersection between speculative, futuristic design and society’s need to re-think our cultural and technological heritage. In his art, he explores issues of trust and knowledge in a post-truth era, as well as the inevitability of change in life.
Alexander has taken a particular interest in the rising communication crisis in the age of digital technologies and has begun to explore alternative forms of communication in his artwork. In his projects, he uses radios, morse coding and satellite technology to explore the very nature of communication, expression and reflection.
Alexander had been working in collaboration with Alexandra Krolikowska since 2007, stepping away in 2022 to begin his first solo period as an artist. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Alexander shifted his artistic interest to a contemporary rethinking of classical artistic themes: death, belief, and trust.
Vitalii Matukno (born in Lysychansk, Ukraine) is a mixed media artist and photographer who acts as the founder and curator for the “Gareleya Neotodryosh” and “14-8-22” projects. He works with photography and mixed media, and, as a musician, he creates Dark Ambient and Noise music.
2021 — curator of the printed Zine, “Neotodryosh”.
2021 — laureate of the “Seed Award” from the Prince Claus Fund.
2020 — head of the local team of the “Plan B Online” festival in the city of Lysychansk.
2019/2020 — co-organizer of the “Terrafox” festival in Lysychansk and Severodonetsk.
2019 — scholarship holder of the “Youth will change Ukraine” program from the “Bohdan Havrylyshyn Foundation”.
2019 — manager of the local team of the “Country to Ukraine” festival.
Hanna Naumkina is a сreative author from Luhansk, Ukraine. Naumkina has worked as a commercial copywriter and editor for 8 years. After graduating from the school for writers in 2021, she began writing essays, short stories, and plays professionally. At the beginning of Russia’s most recent invasion of Ukraine, Hanna was living in the long-occupied city of Luhansk. She chose to continue writing. She is currently working on a novel about the Donbas region, using writing as a process to transform the feeling of war into something “stronger than fear, pain and endless grief.”
Selected works:
“Beware of Life” in the collection A Conversation with Death.
“The Rear of the War” for the collection Freedom, Honor, and War.
Tetiana Pukhnavtseva (born 1993, Kharkiv, Ukraine) is a graphic artist who uses various printmaking and graphic design techniques. In her work she explores themes of fragility, weakness and loneliness. Pukhnavtseva graduated from Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts in 2019. At the Academy she specialised in book illustration, while also developing a talent for graphic design. She works with monochromatic colours and enjoys experimenting with print graphic techniques. She gathers inspiration from archaic art, modernism, japanese art and haiku poetry. Since 2018, Tetiana has been working with children in a private art studio in Kharkiv. Working to provide children with free drawing has greatly influenced her art practice. During the war Tetiana has continued to deliver art lessons to children virtually.
Karyna Synytsia is an artist who specializes in painting and collage. Synytsia (Born 1999, Severodonetsk, Ukraine) graduated from Kharkiv Art School in 2019. In 2023, she graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture (NAFAA) with a degree in monumental and easel painting. Her work depicts landscapes, architectural buildings and constructions, focusing on the emptiness and decay of these spaces and human emotions among them.
Leo Trotsenko is a video and performance artist from Dnipro, Ukraine. He prefers to work with sound, performance, and video. In his work he focuses on the theory and history of music and art, subcultures and micro-communities and Soviet heritage urban space. Before the full-scale war, he often changed cities for life and work. Trotsenko is the founder of the indie publishing house Periscope_ua, as well as a participant in the self-organized artistic initiative DE NE DE.
