The Kyiv International – ’68 NOW explores the political and cultural heritage of the revolt and struggle of 1968, considering the antinomies of this moment for the West and East of Europe fifty years onward. The event will take place through May 25 in Kyiv’s House of Cinema in the format of an international forum for art and knowledge.

Wednesday, May 23 at 19:00 the lecture “1968 in Germany – a Generation with Two Phases and Faces” by Aleida Assmann will take place in the Blue Hall at Kyiv’s House of Cinema.

Born between 1940 and 1950, Generation ‘68 is marked in Germany by the Second World War and its aftermath in a country in dissolution, as well as a strong desire for renewal, return to normalcy, and a settled life in the society into which they were born. This generation grew up at a time of bold technical innovation, economic prosperity, and modernization. The movement toward self-liberation was a distinctly European and Western phenomenon, propelled on by American pop culture, visions of flower power, and the dreams of Hippies. In the German context, these ideals passed through different stages: from its origins grounded in shifts of culture and lifestyle the movement turned political, and arguably even turned terroristic. The historical contribution of the 68ers, however, is not limited to what happened in the 1960s and 70s. A second revolt in the 1980s has been as equally formative in the emergence of a new Europe. Aleida Assmann will focus on both revolutionary moments and how they have changed Europe.

The lecture will be held in English with simultaneous translation into Ukrainian.

Aleida Assmann is a German historian and cultural anthropologist. From 1993 – 2014 she held the Chair of English Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Konstanz, Germany. She taught as a guest professor at various universities (Princeton, Yale, Chicago and Vienna). In 2017 she received the Balzan Price, together with her husband Jan Assmann. Her recent publications in English include Cultural Memory and Western Civilization: Functions, Media, Archives (2012); and Shadows of Trauma: Memory and the Politics of Postwar Identity (2016).

The Kyiv International – ’68 NOW will close with the lecture “Laboratory of the Future: Lenin’s Body between Biochemistry and Art” by Alexei Yurchak. The event will take place on Friday, May 25 at 19:00 in the Blue Hall at Kyiv’s House of Cinema.

The Soviet communist project was organized around the figure of “Leninism” – the discursive and material construct that consisted of Lenin’s texts and quotes, images and sculptures, and Lenin’s physical body in the Mausoleum. As the power center of sovereignty, “Leninism” was constant and eternal; it was the only physical body and body of knowledge that could not be questioned or transcended within Soviet political discourse. In fact, to remain “the same,” Leninism was continuously changed and reinvented throughout Soviet history: Leninist texts were misquoted and censored, Leninist images were invented and retouched, and Lenin’s physical body was re-sculpted and re-embalmed. Meanwhile, the biochemical science that maintained and transformed Lenin’s body remained at the center of this ongoing political reconstruction. What does “Leninism” look like from the perspective of science with its biological labs, chemical tests, and anatomical procedures? How do the political, the artistic, and the biological intersect in this unique project? What does this perspective tell us about the iconoclastic movements directed at Lenin’s images today?

The lecture will be held in Russian.

Alexei Yurchak is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. He received PhD in Cultural Anthropology from Duke University in 1997. He is the author of Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation (Princeton University Press), which won the 2007 Vucinich Book Prize. In 2014, the Russian edition of the book that was rewritten and expanded by the author himself won the “Enlightener Prize” for the best non-fiction book of the year. He is currently working on a book that explores the unique bio-chemical science that has maintained Lenin’s body in the Mausoleum in Moscow.

The full program of events can be found here: http://vcrc.org.ua/68-now/.

Admission to all events will be free of charge.

Organized by Visual Culture Research Center (Kyiv, Ukraine)

Emblem by Experimental Jetset, Amsterdam 2018

Institutional Partners: De Balie (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), European University Viadrina (Frankfurt (Oder), Germany), KrytykaPolityczna (Warsaw, Poland), Medusa Books(Kyiv, Ukraine), tranzit.cz (Prague, Czech Republic)

With the Support of Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Goethe-Institut Ukraine, Prince Claus Fund.

Media Partners: Політична критика, Update, Телекритика, Хмарочос

The Kyiv International – ’68 NOW explores the political and cultural heritage of the revolt and struggle of 1968, considering the antinomies of this moment for the West and East of Europe fifty years onward. The event will take place through May 25 in Kyiv’s House of Cinema in the format of an international forum for art and knowledge.

Friday, May 18 at 19:00, the lecture “The Affects of Democracy” by political thinker Chantal Mouffe will take place in the Blue Hall at Kyiv’s House of Cinema. In this lecture, Chantal Mouffe will examine the crucial role played by what she calls ‘passions’ in politics to refer to the common affects at stake in the construction of collective identities. Taking her bearings from Spinoza, Freud, Wittgenstein, and also from the agonistic model of democracy that she has elaborated in her writings, Chantal Mouffe will scrutinize the role of artistic practices in creating the affects that can be mobilized in order to create a collective will able to give a new vigor to the democratic ideal.

The lecture will be held in English with simultaneous translation into Ukrainian. 

Chantal Mouffe (Belgium, 1943) is a political philosopher and Professor of Political Theory at the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster in London. She is also a corresponding member of the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris and author of The Return of the Political (1993), The Democratic Paradox (2000), On the Political (2005), Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically (2013) and with Inigo Errejon, Podemos: In the Name of the People (2016).

The event will be held in English.

Saturday, May 19 at 16:00, “Living Newspaper: The Legacy of the Prague Spring Today,” a symposium curated by Vít Havránek and Tereza Stejskalová (transit.cz, Czech Republic), will take place in the Blue Hall. Participants will discuss the most immediate question of the era – could the socialist model be reformed or not?

Participants:

Tomáš Hučko: translator, publicist, writer and editor-in-chief of the critical monthly journal Kapitál. He lives and works in Bratislava.

Zbyněk Baladrán: author, artist, curator and exhibition architect. In 2001 he co-founded Display, a space for contemporary art, transformed into Tranzitdisplay in 2007. He was also a member of the curatorial team Manifesta 8.

Alexey Klyuykov: artist, illustrator and founding member of the artistic group of Radical Realists. He lives and works in Prague.

Pavel Barša: Professor of Philosophy at Charles University and researcher of memory policy, orientalism, and emancipation movements.

Viola Ježková: documentary filmmaker and dramaturgist of radio broadcasts for Czech Radio Vltava.

Sunday, May 20 at 19:00, “Filmmakers of the World, Unite!” a screening and presentation by Tereza Stejskalová will take place in the Blue Hall at Kyiv’s House of Cinema. This screening of Black and White (1968) by Krishna Vishwanath and Fugue on the Black Keys (1965) by Drahomíra Vihanová will be followed by a presentation by Tereza Stejskalová on the amnesia of the cultural exchange related to the temporary stay of students from non-aligned countries in Czechoslovakia. She will focus on the encounter between Asian and African students of film and the Czechoslovak New Wave in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the paradox of racism under socialism.

The event will be held in English.

Tereza Stejskalová: curator, writer and researcher working for tranzit.cz. Together with Zbyněk Baladrán, she has recently curated the project Biafra of Spirit: Third World Students in Czechoslovakia at the National Gallery in Prague. She has also co-authored the books Who Is an Artist? (2015)  and Filmmakers of the World, Unite! (2018). 

Sunday, May 20 at 14:00, a presentation on the collective art project by Tokonoma (Germany) and 33 Soshenko (Ukraine) artists’ collectives will take place at the artists’ Studios on 33 Soshenko Street.

The event will be held in English.

Tokonoma is a platform for new art and club culture situated in Kassel. Tokonoma organizes and hosts talks, screenings, exhibitions and club nights and works on the principle of self-organization. In spring 2012, the Tokonoma collective renovated a former retail store in Kassel into a multifunctional space, known as the Tokonoma Apartment.

Soshenko 33 is an art studio of the National Academy of Fine Arts. While having permanent members, Soshenko 33 collective also acts as a situational artists’ group that includes members of other collectives. An important part of their practice is activism around the preservation and development of this particular space. Soshenko 33 collective participated in a residency within the framework of Documenta 14 at Tokonoma space in Kassel.

The full program of events can be found here: http://vcrc.org.ua/68-now/.

Admission to all events will be free of charge.

Organized by Visual Culture Research Center (Kyiv, Ukraine)

Emblem by Experimental Jetset, Amsterdam 2018

Institutional Partners: De Balie (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), European University Viadrina (Frankfurt (Oder), Germany), KrytykaPolityczna (Warsaw, Poland), Medusa Books (Kyiv, Ukraine), tranzit.cz (Prague, Czech Republic).

With the Support of Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Goethe-Institut Ukraine, Prince Claus Fund.

The Kyiv International – ’68 NOW will open at the Red Hall of the Kyiv’s House of Cinema with the lecture “Repoliticizing the French 68” by the philosopher Jacques Rancière on Friday, 11 May at 19:00.

The project will take place on May 11–25 in the Kyiv’s House of Cinema in the format of an international forum for art and knowledge with participation of such outstanding contemporary philosophers and historians as Jacques Rancière (France), Chantal Mouffe (Belgium), Aleida Assmann (Germany), Agnes Heller (Hungary) and Alexei Yurchak (USA). The Kyiv International – ’68 NOW explores the political and cultural heritage of the revolt and struggle of 1968, considering the antinomies of this moment for the West and East of Europe fifty years onward.

In his lecture “Repoliticizing the French 68” on Friday, May 11 at 19:00 Jacques Rancière will explore the motivations and practices of the French May 68 movement, which involved the University system in the context of capitalist domination, revealing what politics consists of in terms of the power of collective invention: the invention of names to deconstruct social identities; the invention of actions to split apart the mediations which define the consensual order; the transformation of the material and symbolic uses of space; and the autonomous unfolding of accelerated time. Such inventions are usually thought of as the manifestation of spontaneous and ephemeral revolt. Yet it can easily be ascertained that it is those momentary disruptions of the normal state of things that bring into existence the temporality of politics.

The lecture will be held in English with simultaneous translation into Ukrainian.

Jacques Rancière is emeritus professor at the department of philosophy of the University of Paris 8 where he taught from 1969 to 2000. He has written extensively on   social emancipation, literature, cinema and the relationship between aesthetics and politics. He is notably the author of Proletarian Nights (1981), The Ignorant Schoolmaster (1987), Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy (1994), The Politics of Aesthetics (2000), Films Fables (2001), The Emancipated Spectator (2007), Aisthesis: Scenes from the Aesthetic Regime of Art (2011) and The Lost Thread: Essays on Modern Fiction (2014).

Saturday, May 12 at 16:00 the presentation “Superstructure,” by the Amsterdam-based design studio Experimental Jetset will take place in the Blue Hall. Marieke Stolk, Erwin Brinkers and Danny van den Dungen will present their ongoing research into the notion of the city as a platform for (graphic) language. They will focus on four main themes: Constructivism, the Situationist International, Provo, and Post-Punk. The presentation will take the form of a slideshow and incorporate examples from the collective’s own work.

The event will be held in English. 

Experimental Jetset is an Amsterdam-based graphic design studio founded in 1997 by Marieke Stolk, Erwin Brinkers and Danny van den Dungen. Focusing mainly on printed matter and site-specific installations, they have worked on projects for a wide variety of institutes, including Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Centre Pompidou, Dutch Post Group, and Whitney Museum of American Art. In 2007, a substantial selection of work by Experimental Jetset was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art (New York). In 2015, Roma Publications (Amsterdam) released a monograph entitled “Statement and Counter-Statement: Notes on Experimental Jetset.” Between 2000 and 2013, Experimental Jetset have been teaching at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie (Amsterdam). They are currently teaching at ARTEZ Werkplaats Typografie (Arnhem). In 2017 EJ developed the design for The Kyiv International – Kyiv Biennial 2017 and in 2018 for The Kyiv International – ’68 NOW.

The event will be held in English. 

Sunday, May 13 at 16:00 artist talk by Igor Grubić will take place in the Blue Hall. The artist will present the project “366 Liberation Rituals,” which consists of different micro-political interventions into the public space that he was doing on an everyday basis throughout 2008, and part of 2009. The point of departure for the project was the 40th anniversary of 1968: Igor Grubić refers to the heritage of conceptual art practices of the former territories of Yugoslavia, the films of Jean-Luc Godard, and the cultural strategies of the late 60s and early 70s.

The event will be held in English.

Igor Grubić has been active as a multimedia artist since the early 1990s. His work includes site-specific interventions into public spaces, photography, and film. He is known for his activism and his consideration of public space as a means of expression. In 2000 he started to work as a producer and author of documentaries, TV reportage, and socially-engaged commercials. His work has been exhibited at various international institutes and at different artistic and cultural events. He has been awarded several times.

The full program of events can be found here: http://vcrc.org.ua/68-now/.

Admission to all events will be free of charge.

Organized by Visual Culture Research Center (Kyiv, Ukraine)

Emblem by Experimental Jetset, Amsterdam 2018

Institutional Partners: De Balie (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), European University Viadrina (Frankfurt (Oder), Germany), KrytykaPolityczna (Warsaw, Poland), Medusa Books (Kyiv, Ukraine), tranzit.cz (Prague, Czech Republic).

With the Support of Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Goethe-Institut Ukraine, Prince Claus Fund.

Visual Culture Research Center announces The Kyiv International – ’68 NOW program. The events will take place on May 11–25 in the Kyiv’s House of Cinema in the format of an international forum for art and knowledge with participation of such outstanding contemporary philosophers and historians as Jacques Rancière (France), Chantal Mouffe (Belgium), Aleida Assmann (Germany), Agnes Heller (Hungary) and Alexei Yurchak (USA).

The Kyiv International – ’68 NOW project explores the political and cultural heritage of the revolt and struggle of 1968, considering the antinomies of this moment for the West and East of Europe fifty years onward. It will open with the lecture by the French philosopher Jacques Rancière on Friday, 11 May at 19:00. The lecture will explore the motivations and practices of the French May 68 movement that focused on the relationship between the University system and capitalist domination and showed what politics means in terms of the power of collective invention. The lecture will be held in English with simultaneous translation into Ukrainian.

Amsterdam-based Experimental Jetset (Marieke Stolk, Erwin Brinkers and Danny van den Dungen), the graphic designers of The Kyiv International – Kyiv Biennial 2017 and The Kyiv International – ’68 NOW, will present their ongoing research on the notion of the city as a platform for (graphic) language. In their presentation “Superstructure,” taking place on Saturday, May 12 at 16:00 the collective will focus on four main themes in their research – Constructivism, the Situationist International, Provo, and Post-Punk. The event will be held in English.

Sunday, May 13 at 16:00 the Croatian artist Igor Grubić will talk about his “366 Liberation Rituals” project which consists of different micro-political interventions into the public space and is based on the heritage of conceptual art practices of the former territories of Yugoslavia, Jean-Luc Godard’s political films, and the cultural strategies of the late 60s and early 70s. The event will be held in English.

Friday, May 18 at 19:00 “The Affects of Democracy” lecture by the Belgian political thinker Chantal Mouffe will take place. She will scrutinize the role of artistic practices in creating the affects that can be mobilized in order to create a collective will able to lend new vigor to the democratic ideal. The lecture will be held in English with simultaneous translation into Ukrainian.

The legacy of May 1968 remains a symbol of liberation and rebellion against entrenched power structures, and a cultural and artistic benchmark for Western Europe. The commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Prague Spring and Soviet military invasion of Czechoslovakia – most immediate in Eastern Europe – continue to define political and cultural divides across the continent. On Saturday, May 19 at 16:00 “Living Newspaper: The Legacy of the Prague Spring Today,” a symposium with the participation of Zbyněk Baladrán, Pavel Barša (Czech Republic), Laďa Gažiová (Slovak Republic), Agnes Heller (Hungary), Viola Ježková, Kapitál collective (Czech Republic), Alexej Klyuykov (Russia), will take place. The participants will discuss one of the most immediate questions of the era – could the socialist model be reformed or not? The event will be held in English.

Sunday, May 20 at 19:00 screenings of the films Black and White (1968) by Krishna Vishwanath and Fugue on the Black Keys (1965) by Drahomíra Vihanová will be followed by the presentation “Filmmakers of the World, Unite!” by Tereza Stejskalová (transit.cz) on the amnesia in the cultural exchange related to the temporary stay of students from Non-Aligned countries in Czechoslovakia. At 14:00, at the artists’ studios at 33 Soshenko Street, Tokonoma (Germany) and 33 Soshenko (Ukraine) artists’ collectives will also talk about their collaboration, which began at documenta 14 in Kassel. The events will be held in English.

Wednesday, May 23 at 19:00 the German historian and cultural anthropologist Aleida Assmann will deliver a lecture “1968 in Germany – a Generation with Two Phases and Faces.” She will talk about the historical contribution of the German Generation ‘68 to the revolutionary movements of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s which have been formative in the emergence of a new Europe. The lecture will be held in English with simultaneous translation into Ukrainian.

The project will finish on Friday, May 25 at 19:00 with the lecture “Laboratory of the Future: Lenin’s Body between Biochemistry and Art” by the American cultural anthropologist Alexei Yurchak. He will talk about the intersection of the political, the artistic, and the biological in the unique project of preserving Lenin’s body. From this perspective, he will also consider the iconoclastic movements directed at images of Lenin today. The lecture will be held in Russian.

The full program of events can be found here: http://vcrc.org.ua/68-now/.

Address: The House of Cinema, 6 Saksahanskoho St.
Admission to all events will be free of charge.

Organized by Visual Culture Research Center (Kyiv, Ukraine)

Emblem by Experimental Jetset, Amsterdam 2018

Institutional Partners: De Balie (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), European University Viadrina (Frankfurt (Oder), Germany), Krytyka Polityczna (Warsaw, Poland), Medusa Books (Kyiv, Ukraine), tranzit.cz (Prague, Czech Republic).

With the Support of Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Goethe-Institut Ukraine, Prince Claus Fund.

Visual Culture Research Center announces The Kyiv International – ’68 NOW, the second edition of The Kyiv International – Kyiv Biennial 2017, to take place in Kyiv at the House of Cinema, May 11 – 25, 2018.

The Kyiv International project aims to reveal the emancipatory potential in the idea of the political International, which first emerged in Europe. The Kyiv International edition of May 2018 will take place in the format of an international forum for art and knowledge and for the first time will bring to Ukraine such outstanding contemporary philosophers and historians as Jacques Rancière (France), Chantal Mouffe (Belgium), Aleida Assmann (Germany), Agnes Heller (Hungary) and Alexei Yurchak (USA).

This project explores the political and cultural heritage of the revolt and struggle of 1968, considering the antinomies of this moment for the West and East of Europe fifty years onward. The legacy of May 1968 remains a symbol of liberation and rebellion against entrenched power structures, and a cultural and artistic benchmark for Western Europe. The commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Prague Spring and Soviet military invasion of Czechoslovakia – most immediate in Eastern Europe – continue to define political and cultural divides across the continent. By comparing different dimensions of this event, as a departure for contemporaneous understanding, ’68 NOW contributes to a united European subjectivity grounded in democratic internationalism, based upon the principles of solidarity and inclusivity.

The Kyiv International – ’68 NOW will begin on May 11 with a lecture by the French philosopher Jacques Rancière, entitled “Repoliticizing the French 68.” The Belgian political thinker Chantal Mouffe will deliver a lecture “The Affects of Democracy” on May 18. A symposium “Living Newspaper: The Legacy of the Prague Spring Today” will take place on May 19 with the participation of the highly noted Hungarian philosopher, Agnes Heller. Lectures and discussions will take place alongside screenings, artist talks, and presentations, including a workshop by Experimental Jetset (The Netherlands) on May 12, and another event with Igor Grubić (Croatia) on May 13. The program wraps up with the lecture “1968 in Germany – a Generation with Two Phases and Faces” by the German historian and cultural anthropologist Aleida Assmann on May 23 and the lecture “Laboratory of the Future: Lenin’s Body between Biochemistry and Art” by the Russian-American cultural anthropologist, Alexei Yurchak on May 25.

Address: The House of Cinema, 6 Saksahanskoho St.

Admission to all events will be free of charge.

Organized by Visual Culture Research Center (Kyiv, Ukraine).

Emblem by Experimental Jetset, Amsterdam, 2018.

Institutional Partners: De Balie (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), European University Viadrina (Frankfurt (Oder), Germany), Krytyka Polityczna (Warsaw, Poland), Medusa Books (Kyiv, Ukraine), tranzit.cz (Prague, Czech Republic).

With the Support of: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Goethe-Institut Ukraine, Prince Claus Fund.

The Kyiv International – Kyiv Biennial 2017 took place on October 20–November 26 at five locations in Kyiv. Its program featured more than 40 events. Over 20,000 people visited The Kyiv International – Kyiv Biennial 2017.

The Kyiv International – Kyiv Biennial 2017 took place in the format of an international forum for art and knowledge. A series of exhibitions, performances, screenings, lectures and discussions led by well-known historians, philosophers and cultural activists addressed the political, social, economic, and historical circumstances in Ukraine and Europe in search of collective answers to today’s most pressing issues.

The main location of The Kyiv International – Kyiv Biennial 2017 was the Institute of Scientific, Technical and Economic Information, or “UFO” (at 180 Antonovycha Street Metro Lybidska), a monument to modernist architecture, which may soon be transformed into a segment of the shopping and entertainment center “Ocean Mall.” Within the format of The Kyiv International – Kyiv Biennial 2017 there was a meeting with Florian Yuriev, the architect of the “UFO,” as well as public discussion concerning a project for its potential renovation. This meeting led to the creation of the #SAVEKYIVMODERNISM initiative. Urbanists, architects and activists are now mobilizing in order to protect the city’s modernist architecture – demanding that City of Kyiv include “UFO” and other buildings into the state register of architectural monuments.

During The Kyiv International – Kyiv Biennial 2017, there were many film screenings, lectures, performances, book presentations, exhibitions, and concerts.

The Opening Exhibition “The Festivities Are Cancelled!” by the Hudrada curatorial group (Ukraine) took place upon the occasion of the Centennial of the October Revolution. The exhibit was dedicated to the memory of revolution and the phenomenon of censorship in both historical and contemporary contexts; the event proceeded in two parts that took place at the main Biennial location, the “UFO,” and at the Pavlo Tychyna Literary Memorial Museum Apartment. The exhibit at Tychyna Museum was shut down by the administration earlier than planned due to the graphic work “Delegation of Power” by Davyd Chychkan, which was banned from the exhibit by the Museum collective due to fear of attack from far-right groups. Protesting censorship, the exhibition curators made it impossible to view the works without closing the exhibition. For more information about the situation, see the comments from the curators of the exhibit and museum workers.

The exhibition “Market” curated by Hanna Tsyba (Ukraine) was the first contemporary art installation on the premises of Kyiv’s Zhytniy Market. The pieces included in the exhibit each aimed to draw attention to the building that houses the Market, a distinctive example of late modernist architecture that has not been included into the state register of architectural monuments. The work “Market Relations” by the architects and researchers of neo-modernism Oleksandr Burlaka and Oleksiy Bykov depicts the history of planning and construction from 1960-1980 with regard to Ukrainian indoor markets. This particular installation has been donated to Zhytniy Market as a permanent display.

The exhibition “Dead Souls” by Marina Naprushkina (Germany) and Oliver Ressler (Austria) was on display at the Visual Culture Research Center. The installation centered around considerations and reflections of the many critical issues that refugees face today. The works by Marina Naprushkina presented key provisions within EU asylum and migration policy, which often leads to economic and social inequality. Oliver Ressler focused on struggles to obtain citizenship, at the same time questioning the implicitly exclusionary nature of the concept based on the example of occupied factories, in which workers aim to achieve control over the means of production.

The “Dance, Dance, Dance” exhibition in the newly opened BURSA GALLERY runs until December 10! Its curator is Serge Klymko (Ukraine), who, as the founder of the “Nyzhnioyurkivska 31” space, was personally involved in creating the conditions for the current booming rave culture in Kyiv. In his work he problematizes the concept of the “New East” by considering the post-Soviet dance scene as a symptom of social and political processes.

Participants of The Kyiv International included: Mikhail Ryklin (Germany), Hiroshi McDonald Mori (Japan), Phil Collins (Germany), Marina Naprushkina (Germany), Oliver Ressler (Austria), Philip Rizk (Egypt), Oksana Bulgakova (Germany), Noah Fischer (USA), Artur Żmijewski (Poland), Olia Sosnovskaya (Belarus), Valentyna Petrova, Mykola Ridnyi (Ukraine) and many others.

The Kyiv International also included the launch of the experimental music platform “Radio International,” in addition to a new series of events dedicated to the issues of sensory perception and the status of contemporary media. Through interacting with Biennial guests and visitors, participants in the experimental radio workshop explored the possibilities for conjunction between public and private expression. Radio International continues to release voice collages, interviews, and special editions created from the materials gathered during the Biennial. Listen to the Radio International by clicking this link. Be sure to follow updates at their Facebook page.

The Kyiv International closed with the performance “Petition against Death” by the world-renowned French artist ORLAN.

The Kyiv International parallel program took place at various art centers and cultural institutions in Prague, Vienna, Paris, Amsterdam, and Madrid.

“The Kyiv International Guidebook,” consisting of texts by historians, political philosophers and artists – including Biennial participants – is due to be published soon.

Nearly all of The Kyiv International – Kyiv Biennial 2017 events were documented. Videos are available on the official VCRC Youtube channel, photos – on Flickr.

The Kyiv International project will continue in Spring 2018, as announced at the closing of the Kyiv Biennial 2017.

Follow further announcements on the Visual Culture Research Center website and in social networks:
vcrc.org.ua
facebook.com/vcrc.org.ua
instagram.com/vcrc.org.ua

Organized by Visual Culture Research Center (Kyiv, Ukraine).

Institutional Partners: Avtonomi Akadimia (Athens, Greece), BURSA Gallery (Kyiv, Ukraine), Columbia Global Centers | Paris (France), DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program (Berlin, Germany), De Balie (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), Depo (Istanbul, Turkey), Depot (Vienna, Austria), documenta 14 (Athens/Kassel, Greece/Germany), European Alternatives (Paris, France), Forum Transregionale Studien (Berlin, Germany), Hromadske TV (Kyiv, Ukraine), Institute for Human Sciences (Vienna, Austria), Medusa Books (Kyiv, Ukraine), National Oleksandr Dovzhenko Center (Kyiv, Ukraine), Political Critique (Warsaw, Poland), Shedhalle (Zurich, Switzerland), Studio 14 (Athens, Greece), Transeuropa Festival 2017 (Madrid, Spain), tranzit.cz (Prague, Czech Republic).

Partners: British Council / Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, ERSTE Foundation, European Cultural Foundation, International Renaissance Foundation, Robert Bosch Foundation.

November 22 – 26, Wednesday – Sunday 

November 13–19, Monday – Sunday

Monday, November 13, at 19:00 at the Institute of Scientific, Technical and Economic Information, “UFO” (180 Antonovycha St., Lybidska Metro) the British artist Paul Chaneywill talk about his project entitled “Donetsk Syndrome Diagrammatic.” Between 2011 and 2014 Chaney researched the history of Donetsk attempting to understand the local conditions of the city as a node within a universal geological reality. The resulting work consists of a 160-meter diagram which describes the city solely as a continuum of materials. The diagram tells the story of each chemical element necessary for the commercial production of coal and iron – from the beginning of the universe, to the current war. Installation of the work in Donetsk was abandoned when the war began, and the work took on a specific cadence, as the socio/political factors the work attempted to understand in this new way were now acting as agents upon the work itself. Admission is free.

Tuesday, November 14, at 16:00 at Pavlo Tychyna Literary-Memorial Museum-Apartment (5 Tereshchenkivska St., ap. 1, 3, metro Teatralna) the curators will give aguided tour of “The Festivities Are Cancelled!” exhibition. The exhibition presents artistic works about the phenomenon of the collective forgetfulness, censorship practices, images of historical time and revolutionary gestures, social creativity will. The exhibit at Pavlo Tychyna Museum-Apartment includes archive materials from the Soviet censorship cases, as well as selected examples of censorship practices in contemporary Ukraine and on post-Soviet space. Curators, participants and members of the curatorial group Hudrada will comment on their exhibitional decisions. Visitors will have a unique opportunity to see the complete exhibit, which will be transformed afterwards. Admission is free.

At 19:00 at the Institute of Scientific, Technical and Economic Information, “UFO” (180 Antonovycha St., Lybidska Metro) the “Snapshots from Future Occupations,” a talk by Noah Fischer (USA), will take place. Brooklyn-based artist Noah Fischer connects his studio practice, writing and organizing with social and economic justice movements. As initiating member of Occupy Museums and Global Ultra Luxury Faction he focuses on inequity propagated by cultural institutions. His work includes long-term theatrical collaboration with Berlin-based andcompany&Co. His work has been seen at the Guggenheim, MoMA, in the 56th Venice Biennale, 7th Berlin Biennale and 2017 Whitney Biennial. Admission is free.

Wednesday, November 15, at 19:00 at the Institute of Scientific, Technical and Economic Information, “UFO” (180 Antonovycha St., Lybidska Metro) there will be a meeting with Florian Yuriev, the “UFO” architect, artist and composer, as well as the first public discussion of the UkrISTEI building renovation project that may turn it into part of the Ocean Mall shopping and entertainment center. Discussion participants: Oksen Lisovyi, vice president of the Minor Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, initiator of the Museum of Science project in UkrISTEI building; Bohdan Shkrohal, author of the UkrISTEI renovation project; representatives of the Ukrainian National Union of Architects and “Kyivproekt” institute; Borys Blazhennyi and Oleksiy Astakhov, who renovated the original sound system of UkrISTEI’s lecture hall. Admission is free. 

Thursday, November 16, at 19:00 the screening of “The Self-Seeker,” (1928) a film byMykola Shpykovsky, will take place within the “Ukrainian Revolutionary Cinema Avant-Garde Series.” Admission is free.

Friday, November 17, at 19:00 a screening of “No! No! No!” and a premiere of “Armed and Dangerous,” film and mini-series by artist Mykola Ridnyi (Ukraine), will take place at the Institute of Scientific, Technical and Economic Information, “UFO” (180 Antonovycha St., Lybidska Metro). The “No! No! No!” protagonists are young Kharkiv residents whose early twenties coincided with the beginning of war in the neighboring Donbass. They all react to political events and comprehend them through specific relations with the urban space and social media reality. “Armed and Dangerous” is a mini-series shot with the smartphone. Its theme is a general militarization of Ukrainian society and particularly the youth’s view on violence and weapons. The author reflects both on the depictions of the fragile social condition and different modes of the moving image originating from the internet and film industry. Short scenes of parties and random urban situations with the author and his friends are combined with footage of political radicals found on the internet, or with episodes from historical films. The screening will be followed by a discussion with the author. Admission is free.

At 23:00 at Otel’ night club (31 Nyzhnioyurkivska Street, Tarasa Shevchenka Metro) a techno party OraCool #2 will take place. The line-up features Mama Snake, a DJ from Copenhagen, supported by the locals Adelina, Karine and Ponura. Entrance fee: 100 uah before midnight and 200 uah after.

Saturday, November 18, at 16:00 at Visual Culture Research Center (44 Hlybochytska Street, Kontraktova Ploshcha Metro) “Video Action,” a live performance by artist and musician Dave Phillips (Switzerland) will take place within the Radio International experimental workshop. The performance will be followed by a discussion on sonic activism, its goals and challenges, as well as of the concept of “human animal.”Admission is free. 

At 19:00, “burn, on fire, alight, inflamed, glow, ablaze, fervent, go up in smoke,” a lecture performance by Olia Sosnovskaya (Belarus) will take place at the Institute of Scientific, Technical and Economic Information, “UFO” (180 Antonovycha St., Lybidska Metro). The artist explores the official Soviet and post-Soviet holidays, festivities and rituals, as well as rave culture and its political dimensions. In the lecture performance she will focus on the visual pleasure referring to the use of fireworks and torches in different contexts – from mass celebrations to protests. Admission is free.

Sunday, November 19, at 14:00 there will be “A Soundwalk on Soundscape and the City’s Rhythms,” a field recordings workshop by Elia Moretti (Czech Republic) dedicated to sonic landscape and rhythm. The workshop will take place in urban space. The meeting point is at the Institute of Scientific, Technical and Economic Information, “UFO” (180 Antonovycha St., Lybidska Metro). Admission is free.  

At 18:30 at the Institute of Scientific, Technical and Economic Information, “UFO” (180 Antonovycha St., Lybidska Metro) within the Radio International experimental workshop there will be a lecture by Elia Moretti (Czech Republic) entitled “To Listen to a Place” focused on the ecological approach to sound. Admission is free. 

At 20:00 within the Radio International experimental workshop a concert “Mutations” byDave Phillips (Switzerland) will take place at the Institute of Scientific, Technical and Economic Information, “UFO” (180 Antonovycha St., Lybidska Metro). It is a study of the spatial and temporal relations between the senses of people and insects. Admission is free.  

Organized by Visual Culture Research Center (Kyiv, Ukraine).

Institutional Partners: Avtonomi Akadimia (Athens, Greece), BURSA Gallery (Kyiv, Ukraine), Columbia Global Centers | Paris (France), DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program (Berlin, Germany), De Balie (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), Depo (Istanbul, Turkey), Depot (Vienna, Austria), documenta 14 (Athens/Kassel, Greece/Germany), European Alternatives (Paris, France), Forum Transregionale Studien (Berlin, Germany), Hromadske TV (Kyiv, Ukraine), Institute for Human Sciences (Vienna, Austria), Medusa Books (Kyiv, Ukraine), National Oleksandr Dovzhenko Center (Kyiv, Ukraine), Political Critique (Warsaw, Poland), Shedhalle (Zurich, Switzerland), Studio 14 (Athens, Greece), Transeuropa Festival 2017 (Madrid, Spain), tranzit.cz (Prague, Czech Republic).

Partners: British Council / Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, ERSTE Foundation, European Cultural Foundation, International Renaissance Foundation, Robert Bosch Foundation.

November 7 – 12, Tuesday – Sunday

Radio International presents “Maidan Walk,” an audio tour by Pic Pic that will begin on Tuesday, November 7, at 14:00 near “Universytet” metro station and last until 15:30. “Maidan. Walk” is the story of Masha, a student of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. In the fall semester of 2013, on the night of December 11, instead of studying for an exam in Soviet history, she spent the evening in the tent city at the center of Kyiv’s Maidan revolution resisting onslaught by the police. Single ticket price: 200 uah (for students and seniors – 150 uah). Tickets are available online after the registration or at Vagabond Cafe: 7, Skovorody Street. Please present some form of ID.

Tuesday, November 7, at 19:00 at the Institute of Scientific, Technical and Economic Information, “UFO” (180 Antonovycha St., Lybidska Metro) the premiere of Play, a performance by Valentyna Petrova (Ukraine) will take place. Exploring the textual frames and power relations hidden in speech, Play works with expressions of intimacy, neglecting the common for the sake of equal inclusion of all participants into the realm of utterance. Admission is free.

Wednesday, November 8, at 19:00 there will be a presentation of the Ukrainian translation of Judith Butler’s book Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? at the Institute of Scientific, Technical and Economic Information, “UFO” (180 Antonovycha St., Lybidska Metro) with the editor of the Ukrainian edition Kateryna Mishchenko, translator Yustyna Kravchuk and journalist Kateryna Sergatskova(Ukraine). In Frames of War Butler, one of the key figures in gender theory and contemporary philosophy, analyses Western forms of warfare exploring, in particular, the ways in which the media represent state violence. The very understanding of human life depends on this representation, as being in accordance with a certain frame it can be considered both worth and not worth living. Admission is free.

Thursday, November 9, at 19:00 the screening of “The Eleventh Year,” (1928) a film by Dzyga Vertov, will take place within the “Ukrainian Revolutionary Cinema Avant-Garde Series.” Admission is free.

November 1–5, Wednesday – Sunday

On Wednesday, November 1, at 19:00 there will be a discussion, “Krytyka Polityczna Athens” by Katja Ehrhardt (AthenSYN) and Joulia Strauss (Avtonomi Akadimia) (Greece/Germany). Katja Ehrhardt will present her artistic research project entitled, “Universitas,” which is an educational model for a community of teachers and learners that transcends national and sociopolitical borders. Artists from Syria, Greece, and Germany came together with Athenians and migrants in workshops in Athens’ refugee camps and the venues of the Athens Biennale. The project poses the following question: What can we all learn from the refugee “crisis”? Joulia Strauss will present her project Avtonomi Akadimia and share her experience of the transformation of the educational system of Europe, presenting educational formats and practices as the next step in furthering activist art.

At 20:00, the artist Marta Madej (Poland/Germany) will present “In Memoriam Zygmunt Bauman,” in honor of the famous sociologist and philosopher Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017), who passed away this year.

On Thursday, November 2, at 19:00 there will be a screening of the film “In Spring” (1929) by Mikhail Kaufman within the “Ukrainian Revolutionary Cinema Avant-Garde Series.”

On Friday, November 3, at 17:00 the artist and director Helmut Batista (Brazil) will give a talk entitled, “Deep Hanging Out” in which he will discuss CAPACETE – a program he founded in Rio de Janeiro in 1998 that includes an annual residency, seminar, publications, bookstore and much more.

At 19:00 there will be the “Acoustic Weapons: From the Walls of Jericho to the GitMo Playlist,” a performance by sound artist Sebastian Bayse Schäfer (Germany) featuring audio and video material in its most sinister forms, raising the question: Can sound actually kill someone?

On Saturday, November 4, at 16:00 in “Dread Nought! Fear not – in the Age of Anxiety” artists Judith Holzer & Marcel Schobel (Germany) will discuss their open Book Project in which they are collecting and sampling texts and images from various sources in order to formulate a new language.

At 19:00 the philosopher and cultural theorist Mikhail Ryklin (Germany) will deliver a lecture, “The Fiasco of World Revolution,” based on his latest book Doomed Icarus: Red October from a Family Perspective (2017), written ahead of the centennial of the October Revolution. In his book and lecture, Mykhail Ryklin explores how this event has influenced his family’s history. The author’s grand-uncle, Nikolai Chaplin, was one of the leaders of the Communist Youth League in 1924-1928, when the October Revolution was seen as nothing more than the first step towards a world revolution. After their hopes collapsed, Nikolai and his friends (Lazar Shatskin, Beso Lominadze, Alexander Kosarev) became victims of the Great Terror. The author’s grandfather, Sergei Chaplin, was a Soviet intelligence officer and was arrested in the case against his older brother. He served time in Leningrad’s Kresty Prison and Kolyma mine labor camp before his execution.

On Sunday, November 5, the artists and founders of the “Pirate Cinema” anti-copyright movement Jan Gerber and Sebastian Lütgert (Germany) will deliver the talk, “Pirate Cinema and New Forms of Action Against Politics and Art,” and three screenings:

14:00 Revolution 1 (French): Chris Marker, Gaspard Glanz, Ute Holl, Peter Ott, et al.
17:00 Revolution 2 (October): Kira Muratova, Peter Cherkasky, Artavazd Peleshian, Ken Jacobs, et al.
20:00 Revolution 3 (Digital): Dzyga Vertov, Alfred Hitchcock, Jean-Luc Godard, Philippe Grandrieux, et al.

Organized by Visual Culture Research Center (Kyiv, Ukraine).

Institutional Partners: Avtonomi Akadimia (Athens, Greece), BURSA Gallery (Kyiv, Ukraine), Columbia Global Centers | Paris (France), DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program (Berlin, Germany), De Balie (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), Depo (Istanbul, Turkey), Depot (Vienna, Austria), documenta 14 (Athens/Kassel, Greece/Germany), European Alternatives (Paris, France), Forum Transregionale Studien (Berlin, Germany), Hromadske TV (Kyiv, Ukraine), Institute for Human Sciences (Vienna, Austria), Medusa Books (Kyiv, Ukraine), National Oleksandr Dovzhenko Center (Kyiv, Ukraine), Political Critique (Warsaw, Poland), Shedhalle (Zurich, Switzerland), Studio 14 (Athens, Greece), Transeuropa Festival 2017 (Madrid, Spain), tranzit.cz (Prague, Czech Republic).

Partners: British Council / Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, ERSTE Foundation, European Cultural Foundation, International Renaissance Foundation, Robert Bosch Foundation.