Wednesday, 8 April 2015, 19:00
Visual Culture Research Center (44 Hlybochytska Street (1st floor), Kyiv)

Visual Culture Research Center and Political Critique invite you to the presentation of a book by Natalia Gumenyuk MAIDAN TAHRIR. In Search of Lost Revolution, which will take place on Wednesday, 8 April, at 19:00.

Maidan Tahrir is a collection of journalistic stories by Natalia Gumenyuk, written during her trips around the Middle East in times of revolutionary transformations. The heroes of this book – activists and musicians, bloggers and cyber-dissidents, militarists and Islamists, artists and rebels – are combined by their experience of democratic uprising against the regime. Texts, written at the height of the Arab Spring, resonate directly with the experience of Ukrainian society after Maidan. Maidan Tahrir is a book published by Visual Culture Research Center and Political Critique.

Natalia Gumenyuk is a Ukrainian journalist, co-founder of Hromadske.TV, head of Hromadske International project. She has covered the events in over 50 countries. Since 2001, Natalia has worked as an international journalist at different Ukrainian TV channels. Since 2011, she has covered the protests in different areas of the world as a freelancer, exploring the development of societies amidst conflicts and revolutions. During the last year Natalia has made reports about the situation in Crimea and Donbas, as well as Ukrainian international relations.

Presentation will take place with participation of the author.

Moderator – Oleksiy Radynski

Admission is free

Supported by ERSTE Stiftung and Charles Stewart Mott Foundation

Media partners:

Visual Culture Research Center (VCRC) was founded in 2008 as a platform for collaboration between academic, artistic, and activist communities. VCRC is an independent initiative, which is engaged in publishing and artistic activities, scientific research, organization of public lectures, discussions, and conferences. In 2015 Visual Culture Research Center received the European Cultural Foundation’s Princess Margriet Award.

Contacts:

+380631481204 (Nazariy Sovsun)
+380674422389 (Oleksiy Radynski)
www.facebook.com/vcrc.org.ua
vcrc@vcrc.org.ua

Sunday, 5 April 2015, 19:00
Visual Culture Research Center (44 Hlybochytska Street (1st floor), Kyiv)

Visual Culture Research Center, Political Critique, and Docudays UA invite you to the discussion «The Chechen Option», which will take place on Sunday, 5 April, at 19:00.

During ten years the government of Russian Federation conducted a counter-terrorist operation (CTO) against Chechen separatists. As a result, the Chechen Republic was granted a broad autonomy, but de facto, this established its status of a grey area, where legal regulation is replaced by corruption and dictatorship of violence.

At the meeting with Angela Merkel Vladimir Putin suggested the «Chechen option» for the settlement to conflict in Eastern Ukraine. Unsolved and, in fact, frozen Chechen conflict is being reproduced today in the East of Ukraine. As well as Russia, Ukraine now has to conduct ATO (anti-terrorist operation) for its struggle with separatism, gradually appropriating Russian politics of internal colonization.

Can the analysis of internal Russian problems give the key to understanding the logic of its external policy? Can the history of the Chechen conflict shed light upon the situation in Ukraine? What are the similarities between CTO and ATO? Can the analysis of Russian counter-terrorist operation point to possible mistakes and risks for Ukrainian politics?

Participants of the discussion:

Vissarion Aseev is a civil activist, who was engaged in human rights activities in Caucasus, Russia, Ukraine, and Crimea. He is a former coordinator of the Joint Civil Front of Northern Ossetia.

Serhiy Danylov is Deputy Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and fellow researcher at the Institute of Eastern Studies (National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine).

Konstantin Reutskiy is a journalist and human rights activist, head of the non-government organization «Centre for Human Rights Postup». He is journalist at infomator.lg.ua and Hromadske.tv.

Kateryna Sergatskova is an independent journalist, war reporter, who writes for Ukrainska Pravda, Focus, Ukrainian edition of Esquire, Colta, Snob. She made reports from Crimea, Donetsk, Horlivka, Krasnoarmiysk, Shchastya, Mariupol.

Moderator – Nataliia Neshevets

The discussion will take place within the frameworks of the exhibition Grozny: 9 Cities.

Admission is free

Supported by ERSTE Stiftung and Charles Stewart Mott Foundation

Media partners:

Visual Culture Research Center (VCRC) was founded in 2008 as a platform for collaboration between academic, artistic, and activist communities. VCRC is an independent initiative, which is engaged in publishing and artistic activities, scientific research, organization of public lectures, discussions, and conferences. In 2015 Visual Culture Research Center received the European Cultural Foundation’s Princess Margriet Award.

Contacts:

+380631481204 (Nazariy Sovsun)
www.facebook.com/vcrc.org.ua
vcrc@vcrc.org.ua

‘The School of Kyiv‘. The Biennale 2015 in Kyiv will take place despite the withdrawal of Mystetsky Arsenal

Mysteskyi Arsenal has unilaterally withdrawn as an organiser of the 2nd Kyiv Biennale, under the title ‘The School of Kyiv‘. This decision was taken without any warning and unexpectedly interrupts a project that involves artists, intellectuals, civil society initiatives and institutions in Ukraine, Europe and beyond. These groups and individuals dedicated their work to an initiative trying to create a space of reflection beyond the logics of the actual conflicts.

Under present political conditions in Ukraine, after the revolution of Maidan and when the country is at war, the political potential of art is needed today more than ever before. The fundamental role of art as a reflexive instrument is to challenge the present political context defined by the armed conflict in Ukraine.

The biennale is an open project, which society has a deep need for, aimed at creating a public framework, a space where civil society will be able to reflect on its threatened conditions by means of art and knowledge.

We, together with institutions and initiatives in Kyiv, the Ukraine and Europe, have decided to go ahead with the biennale project, after one and a half years of intense collaboration and exchange, without the support of Mysteskyi Arsenal. ‘The School of Kyiv‘ will take place this year as planned!

The project will be realised by the curators in close collaboration with a wide range of artistic and civil society organizations.

Hedwig Saxenhuber & Georg Schöllhammer
Curators

More information will be given at a press conference and in a press release in April in Kyiv

Tuesday, 24 March 2015, 19:00
Visual Culture Research Center (44 Hlybochytska Street (1st floor), Kyiv)

Visual Culture Research Center, Political Critique, and Docudays UA invite you to the discussion «Does Propaganda Really Exist?», which will take place on Tuesday, 24 March, at 19:00.

The concept of «propaganda» is mentioned in legal system, media, public and political discourses. Counterpropaganda – political struggle in media field – became the mission of state apparatus, as well as civil society. However, the content of the term «propaganda» is still opaque, its usage is, to a large extent, intuitive and based on the concealed ideological and political preferences, or prejudices.

Such blur implicates the distrust of facts, of any records, or evidence, and finally, – the blurring of reality in general.

What can documentary filmmaking counterpose in this situation? On the one hand, it is always accompanied by the pathos of truth. On the other hand, this is exactly what makes it an ideal instrument, a medium of propaganda.

The purpose of the discussion is problematization of the concept of propaganda in contemporary context. Is non-propagandist depiction of war possible in documentary? Are there any boundaries between propaganda and engaged attitude, between propagandist and antagonist?

Participants of the discussion:

Olga Bryukhovetska (PhD in Philosophy) is a Professor at the Cultural Studies Department (National University of «Kyiv-Mohyla Academy»), culture and film theorist. She teaches the courses «Visual Culture», «Theory of Communication», and «Mass Culture».

Mustafa Nayyem is a member of Ukrainian parliament, former journalist, co-founder and editor of Hromadske.tv, former author for the newspapers Kommersant and Ukrainska Pravda, activist of Stop Censorship! movement.

Svetla Turnin (Canada) is a film and culture theorist, co-founder and Executive Director of Cinema Politica. In 2013 she co-edited the book Screening Truth to Power: A Reader on Documentary Activism. Most recently Svetla has been giving workshops and talks on the politics of festival programming, documentary and activism at international festivals and conferences.

Yevhen Fedchenko (PhD in Political Science) is a Professor and Director of the School of Journalism (National University of «Kyiv-Mohyla Academy»), international journalist, co-founder of Stopfake.org. He organized trainings on reporter skills, television news production, documentary production for international NGOs (OSCE, DFID, PRESS NOW).

Pavel Sheremet is Belorussian, Russian, and Ukrainian journalist, author of documentaries Wild Hunting and Wild Hunting – 2, Chechen Diary, 1991 – the Last Year of the Empire, Execution of Saddam. War without Winner etc. He is a Laureate of the OSCE Prize for Journalism and Democracy.

Moderator – Vasyl Cherepanyn

The discussion will take place within the frameworks of International Documentary Human Rights Film Festival Docudays UA.

Admission is free

Supported by ERSTE Stiftung and Charles Stewart Mott Foundation

Media partners:

Visual Culture Research Center (VCRC) was founded in 2008 as a platform for collaboration between academic, artistic, and activist communities. VCRC is an independent initiative, which is engaged in publishing and artistic activities, scientific research, organization of public lectures, discussions, and conferences. In 2015 Visual Culture Research Center received the European Cultural Foundation’s Princess Margriet Award.

Contacts:

+380631481204 (Nazariy Sovsun)
www.facebook.com/vcrc.org.ua
vcrc@vcrc.org.ua

March 21 – April 5
Visual Culture Research Center (44 Hlybochytska Street (1st floor), Kyiv)

International Documentary Human Rights Film Festival Docudays UA, Visual Culture Research Center, and Political Critique invite you to the exhibition Grozny: Nine Cities, which will take place from March 21 to April 5 at the address 44 Hlybochytska Street.

Grozny: Nine Cities is a joint project by Olga Kravets, Maria Morina, and Oksana Yushko, exploring specific aspects of Grozny’s aftermath through considering them as «cities» hidden within Grozny. Grozny, the capital of war-torn Chechnya, is a melting pot for changing Сaucasus society that is trying to overcome a post-trauma shock of two recent wars and find its own way of life in between traditional Сhechen values, Muslim traditions, and globalization, to cope with rapidly changing role of women, increasing contrast between rich and poor and political games.

The project Grozny: Nine Cities centers on the idea of nine cities being hidden in one, which gives us a concept to explore specific aspects of the aftermath of two Chechen wars considering them as «cities» hidden within Grozny. First city is the city that has ceased to exist – memory of Soviet multicultural Grozny that was bombed and burned down. Second city is the city of war, where violence has become a kind of background noise for locals. Third city is the city of religion, undergoing total Islamization conducted by Ramzan Kadyrov. The city of women and the city of men reveal gender problems connected with these processes. The city of strangers is a story about complicated ethnic relationships within the city. The city of oil is an economic base on which authoritarian President Ramzan Kadyrov builds his city of servants, loyal to his regime. Under the burden of threats and uncertainty, within the wind of rapid changes the city of ordinary people lives its everyday life.

Curator – Anna Shpakova

Exhibition is open every day, except Monday, from 13:00 to 19:00
Exhibition opening – March 21, at 17:30
Project authors Maria Morina and Oksana Yushko, curator Anna Shpakova will attend the opening.
On March 22, at 18:00 a tour around the exhibition will take place with the participation of the authors.

Admission is free

On March 22, at 12:00, Maria, Oksana and Anna will hold a meeting with the audience of DOCU/CLASS on «Group Project Grozny: 9 Cities – how to create and to present a critical project on the events in your country».

On the 5th of April, at 19:00 the discussion «Chechen Option» will take place. The discussion will explore the parallels between the counter-terrorist operation in Chechnya and anti-terrorist operation in the East of Ukraine.

Visual Culture Research Center (VCRC) was founded in 2008 as a platform for collaboration between academic, artistic, and activist communities. VCRC is an independent initiative, which is engaged in publishing and artistic activities, scientific research, organization of public lectures, discussions, and conferences. In 2015 Visual Culture Research Center received the European Cultural Foundation’s Princess Margriet Award.

Contacts:

Visual Culture Research Center

+380631481204 (Nazariy Sovsun)
www.facebook.com/vcrc.org.ua
vcrc@vcrc.org.ua

Thursday, 19 March 2015, 19:00
Visual Culture Research Center (44 Hlybochytska Street (1st floor), Kyiv)

Visual Culture Research Center and Political Critique invite you to the screening of film The Motherhood Archives by Irene Lusztig, which will take place on Thursday, 19 March, at 19:00.

Archival montage, science fiction, and homage to 70s feminist filmmaking are woven together to excavate hidden histories of childbirth in the twentieth century. Assembling an archive of over 100 educational, industrial, and medical training films, The Motherhood Archives inventively untangles the complex, sometimes surprising genealogies of maternal education. From the first use of anesthetic ether in the 19th century to the postmodern 21st century hospital birthing suite, The Motherhood Archives charts a course through the cultural history of pain, the history of obstetric anesthesia, and the little-known international history of the natural childbirth and Lamaze movements. Revealing a world of intensive training, rehearsal, and performative preparation for the unknown that is ultimately incommensurate with experience, The Motherhood Archives becomes a meditation on the maternal body as a site of institutional control, ideological surveillance, medical knowledge, and nationalist state intervention. The film works both, as a feminist recuperation of obsolete maternal histories, and as a visual analysis of the persistent disciplining of the pregnant / laboring body.

Irene Lusztig is a filmmaker, media archeologist, and visual artist. Her film and video work mines old images and technologies for new meanings in order to reframe, recuperate, or reanimate the forgotten and neglected stories. Using hybrid formal strategies and combining visual textures (including digital video, Super 8 and 16mm film, and found / archival materials) her work investigates the production of personal, collective, and national memories.

Admission is free

The screening will take place within the frameworks of feminist program that is taking place at VCRC from 3rd to 19th of March

Supported by ERSTE Stiftung, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Ukraine

Media partners:

Visual Culture Research Center (VCRC) was founded in 2008 as a platform for collaboration between academic, artistic, and activist communities. VCRC is an independent initiative, which is engaged in publishing and artistic activities, scientific research, organization of public lectures, discussions, and conferences. In 2015 Visual Culture Research Center received the European Cultural Foundation’s Princess Margriet Award.

Contacts:

+380631481204 (Nazariy Sovsun)
www.facebook.com/vcrc.org.ua
vcrc@vcrc.org.ua

Wednesday, 18 March 2015, 19:00
Visual Culture Research Center (44 Hlybochytska Street (1st floor), Kyiv)

Visual Culture Research Center and Political Critique invite you to the presentation of gender studies anthology Image, Body, Order, which will take place on Wednesday, 18 March, at 19:00.

Why do we discuss gender? Actually, why do we still discuss it? Why are we still confronted by latent, or explicit, rejection of this concept and, generally, topics related to gender?

The anthology Image, Body, Order, issued by MEDUSA publishing house, is an attempt to answer these questions, being at the same time evidence of their paradoxical nature. On the one hand, serious gender studies have existed and significantly influenced the contemporary humanities for decades. On the other hand, the concept of gender in the public debate on society, science, and art is still often perceived with mistrust.

Image, Body, Order is an anthology of academic texts on gender issues in different areas of knowledge: economics, medical science, architecture, law, literature, photography etc. The main purpose of the publication is to introduce to Ukrainian readers new, as yet untranslated research works, particularly those from German-speaking part of gender studies, which to this day remain insufficiently represented in the Ukrainian academic context. The materials present wide thematic range: from feminist jurisprudence, to intersexuality, eating disorders, and the gender aspects of architecture.

The anthology will be presented by the editor Kateryna Mishchenko, translators Olesya Bondarenko and Lesya Kulchynska, and researcher Mariya Mayerchyk.

Olesya Bondarenko is a scholar of literature, translator, researcher of contemporary American poetry at Kyiv National Linguistic University.

Mariya Mayerchyk (PhD in History) is an ethnologist, who specializes in cultural anthropology, history of culture, gender and queer issues. She is the author of the book Body and Ritual. Structuralist and Semantic Analysis of Family Ceremonies in Ukraine.

Kateryna Mishchenko is a translator and essayist, co-founder of MEDUSA publishing house.

Lesya Kulchynska is a theorist of culture, member of Visual Culture Research Center.

Admission is free

The lecture will take place within the frameworks of feminist program that is taking place at VCRC from 3d to 19th of March

Organization partner – MEDUSA publishing house

Supported by ERSTE Stiftung, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Ukraine

Media partner:

Visual Culture Research Center (VCRC) was founded in 2008 as a platform for collaboration between academic, artistic, and activist communities. VCRC is an independent initiative, which is engaged in publishing and artistic activities, scientific research, organization of public lectures, discussions, and conferences. In 2015 Visual Culture Research Center received the European Cultural Foundation’s Princess Margriet Award.

Contacts:

+380631481204 (Nazariy Sovsun)
www.facebook.com/vcrc.org.ua
vcrc@vcrc.org.ua

Saturday, 14 March 2015, 17:00
Visual Culture Research Center (44 Hlybochytska Street (1st floor), Kyiv)

Visual Culture Research Center and Political Critique invite you to the lecture by a historian Kateryna Dysa, which will take place on Saturday, 14 March, at 17:00.

Hostile attitude towards the manifestations of sexuality, especially female and extramarital, evolved during the first centuries of Christianity. Such attitude was later taken up by secular courts, which criminalized some types of extramarital intimate relationships. In the records of Ukrainian courts – both secular and religious – there are many cases on sexual «deviations», including adultery as one of the prevailing. In her lecture Kateryna Dysa will examine the specific character of such cases: under what circumstances relationships, which were secret by definition, became apparent, who would most likely become accused, and why was the punishment disproportionate to «crime».

Kateryna Dysa holds a PhD in history, is lecturer at the National University of «Kyiv-Mohyla Academy», and fellow researcher at the Center for Polish and European Studies. Her research interests are oriented in historical anthropology: history of witchcraft, history of family, history of childhood, as well as history of healthcare, ideas, and imagination. She is the author of books History of Everyday Life in Early Modern Europe, and History of Witches. Trials of Necromancy in Ukrainian Voivodships of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 17–18 centuries.

Admission is free

The lecture will take place within the frameworks of feminist program that is taking place at VCRC from 3rd to 19th of March

Supported by ERSTE Stiftung, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Ukraine

Media partner:

Visual Culture Research Center (VCRC) was founded in 2008 as a platform for collaboration between academic, artistic, and activist communities. VCRC is an independent initiative, which is engaged in publishing and artistic activities, scientific research, organization of public lectures, discussions, and conferences. In 2015 Visual Culture Research Center received the European Cultural Foundation’s Princess Margriet Award.

Contacts:

+380631481204 (Nazariy Sovsun)
www.facebook.com/vcrc.org.ua
vcrc@vcrc.org.ua

Thursday, 12 March 2015, 19:00
Visual Culture Research Center (44 Hlybochytska Street (1st floor), Kyiv)

Visual Culture Research Center and Political Critique invite you to the discussion Women, Parties, Quotas: How to Achieve Gender Equality in Politics?, which will take place on Thursday, 12 March, at 19:00.

In 2015 all Ukrainian authorities had to include not less than 30 % of women. At least these were the liabilities, which Ukraine pledged before the UN. However, currently nearly 90 % of members of our parliament are men. Ukrainian President and some political experts motivate the increase of women in politics for the reason that it will help to «achieve peace, wisdom», to «fight corruption». It seems that our officials lack political will, have no idea about the mechanisms of implementation of such reforms, and even don’t understand the very idea of gender equality, needed for the guarantee of the real access of women to politics and power.

This discussion aims to clarify the purposes for gender equality in governmental bodies, consider the mechanisms of «positive discrimination», implementation of gender quotas, and changes in the election law, and to highlight the relevant experience of reforms in the world.

Participants:

Tamara Martsenyuk is a Doctor of Sociology, Professor at the Sociology Department (National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy), who teaches the course Gender and Politics.

Olena Yena is a Senior Manager of Women – leaders program (National Democratic Institute).

Zakhar Popovych is a Doctor of Economics, activist of Left Opposition socialist union, co-author of a draft statute of the party of social revolution, which involves extensive use of gender quotas.

Moderator – Olha Vesnyanka

Admission is free

The discussion will take place within the frameworks of feminist program which will last at VCRC from the 3d until the 19th of March

Supported by ERSTE Stiftung, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Ukraine

Media partner:

Visual Culture Research Center (VCRC) was founded in 2008 as a platform for collaboration between academic, artistic, and activist communities. VCRC is an independent initiative, which is engaged in publishing and artistic activities, scientific research, organization of public lectures, discussions, and conferences. In 2015 Visual Culture Research Center received the European Cultural Foundation’s Princess Margriet Award.

Contacts:

+380631481204 (Nazariy Sovsun)
www.facebook.com/vcrc.org.ua
vcrc@vcrc.org.ua

Friday, 6 March 2015, 18:00
Visual Culture Research Center (44 Hlybochytska Street (1st floor), Kyiv)

Visual Culture Research Center and Political Critique invite you to the opening of exhibition Motherhood, which will take place on Friday, 6 March, 18:00.

Exhibition Motherhood suggests a feminist perspective on such traditional woman «function» as giving birth and raising a child. Which maternal experiences are hidden from publicity? What efforts have to be made for the sake of formation and development of a new human being? How is the topic of motherhood revealed in the work of female artists, even though giving birth often makes them put creative work on the back burner? What does the potential opportunity of becoming a mother mean to every woman? These and other issues will be questioned in the works of artists from Ukraine, Poland, Russia, Moldova, Hungary, Austria, and Sweden.

Analyzing the role and status of mothers in the society, the exhibition represents motherhood as a hard corporal and mental work that makes our existence possible. The dialogue with mothers is a dialogue with the history of one’s own life, which deserves to be a public issue.

Participants
Oksana Briukhovetska, Anna Fabricius, Tatiana Fiodorova, Marta Frej, Ksenia Gnylytska, Masha Godovannaya, Elżbieta Jabłońska, Alina Jakubenko, Alina Kleitman, Joanna Rajkowska, Emma Thorsander, Marina Vinnik, Anna Witt

Curator
Oksana Briukhovetska

Series of events related to feminist topics will take place within the frameworks of the exhibition:

7 March, 19:00 – Film screening in partnership with Festival of film and urbanism «86» – The Punk Singer by Sini Anderson
8 March, 20:00 – Feminist party W Sounds
12 March, 19:00 – Discussion Women, Parties, Quotas: How to Achieve Gender Equality in Politics
14 March, 17:00 – Lecture by Kateryna Dysa: Feamale Sexuality in the 18th century Ukraine: Non-Symmetrical Answers from Jurisprudence
18 March, 19:00 – Presentation of gender studies anthology Image. Body. Order with the participation of Mariya Mayerchyk
19 March, 19:00 – Closing film: The Motherhood Archives by Irene Lusztig

Admission is free

Supported by ERSTE Stiftung, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Ukraine

Project partners:

Media partner:

Visual Culture Research Center (VCRC) was founded in 2008 as a platform for collaboration between academic, artistic, and activist communities. VCRC is an independent initiative, which is engaged in publishing and artistic activities, scientific research, organization of public lectures, discussions, and conferences. In 2015 Visual Culture Research Center received the European Cultural Foundation’s Princess Margriet Award.

Contacts:
+380631481204 (Nazariy Sovsun)
+380964929600 (Natalka Neshevets)

vcrc@vcrc.org.ua
www.facebook.com/vcrc.org.ua