Art Against All Odds: Ukrainian Artist Residencies

One of the aims of Russia’s invasion is to deny and consequently destroy Ukrainian cultural identity and cultural heritage in all its forms. Therefore, we can rightfully call it a cultural genocide. That makes creating art, by definition, an act of resistance. How do Ukrainian artists and curators keep their culture alive while under fire?

We have invited five Ukrainian artist residency leaders who continue their residency work near the frontline for a visitors programme in the Netherlands. During this public evening, organised with De Balie, together we will explore their role during the war and how art brings a sense of community and solidarity. Our guests will speak about how their daily practices have changed in the last few years, how the art they curate reflects the war, and how they work on producing new cultural heritage while that heritage is under attack.

More details about the programme will follow.

Practical information
Date:  Thursday 28 November
Time: 20:30 - 22:30
Location:  De Balie, Amsterdam
Language: English

Before the full-scale invasion, Ukraine counted 34 artist residencies. Since February 2022, only a quarter of them are still active. Another 11 have adopted a hybrid model, serving as shelters while providing spaces for creativity, connection, and community. Sadly, nearly half of the residencies have had to close down altogether, with their teams fleeing abroad or joining the military. Those near the Russian border have been hit the hardest.

Art plays a vital role in survival, resistance, and hope. Despite the challenges, our guests continue to facilitate artistic creativity despite this difficult time. These artist residencies face many obstacles, including staff shortages, a lack of steady financial support, loss of physical spaces due to war, and an increasing need for psychological support. Yet, they remain resilient, determined, and passionate against all odds.

Last summer, DutchCulture | TransArtists visited several of these residencies across Ukraine. During this visitors programme, we welcome five of them to the Netherlands for a week-long visit to share their stories, connect and exchange with the Dutch cultural sector, and expand their networks.

Meet our guests:

About the Artsvit Gallery
Artsvit Gallery is a cultural platform dedicated to interdisciplinary projects, discussions, and the representation of contemporary Ukrainian art. Its core activities include exhibitions, educational and research programmes, artist residencies, and the development of a Ukrainian art collection. Focusing on socio-critical art, the gallery addresses the socio-cultural context of Dnipro, exploring its cultural, industrial, and post-Soviet heritage. Non-formal education plays a key role in many of its projects. The gallery's primary goal is to support the growth of local creative communities and to highlight significant contexts and events in Ukraine—such as the full-scale Russian invasion—through art. Artsvit also collaborates on international projects, aiming to showcase Ukrainian culture globally.

About Iryna Polikarchuk
Iryna Polikarchuk co-founded the Dnipro Centre for Contemporary Culture and teaches art history and history of modern culture at the Dnipro Art College. She works on the public programme of the Artsvit Gallery, establishes partnerships (national and international), coordinates the team’s work, and manages projects. She is a co-curator and coordinator of the Ukrainian part of the Secondary Archive project, founded by the Katarzyna Kozyra Foundation (Warsaw). Iryna has a master’s degree in cultural studies from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. In her work, Iryna is interested in social inclusion and accessibility, urban practices, and informal approaches to education.

About Asortymentna Kimnata
Asortymentna Kimnata is both a physical space (project space, educational space, and gallery) and a transferable model for supporting contemporary art in "peripheral" areas. It explores the local "assortment" in Ivano-Frankivsk in the western part of Ukraine, a town often viewed as peripheral and conservative and as an important place in the art scene being a "door of postmodernism" to Ukraine in the early 90ties. Asortymentna Kimnata's research delves into "products" (artworks) and meanings, as they experiment with solutions for cultural decentralization and the development of the local art ecosystem.

In over seven years of community work in Frankivsk, Asortymentna Kimnata has evolved from a classic white cube gallery to a nomadic gallery. It now identifies as a project space. Committed to uncompromising decentralization, Asortymentna Kimnata hosts exhibitions, residencies, educational programmes, and music events, while providing curatorial and financial support to the local art community. So far, Asortymentna Kimnata has organized 65 exhibitions, 12 residencies, and over 40 educational events. In 2023 they published 5 art books and catalogues, with plans to publish 4 more in 2024.

About Alona Karavai
Alona is a cultural manager, curator, essayist, and co-founder of the project space Asortymentna Kimnata, the residency house Khata-Maysternya, and the art media platform Post Impreza. Alona is originally from the Donetsk region and had a refugee / internal forced displacement experience in 2014. She worked at the contemporary art centre IZOLYATSIA while it was based in Donetsk, after 2014 she was living and working in Berlin and since 2018 she has co-curated several site-specific projects in Ivano-Frankivsk. Since 2022, she has focused on urgent art residencies in Ukraine, the evacuation of private collections, and organizing Ukrainian contemporary art exhibitions in Europe. In 2023, she was awarded the Kairos Prize, a European award for cultural actors. Her work explores themes of peripheries, absence, and local art communities.

About Zapravka
Zapravka is an interinstitutional initiative to support artistic residencies, established by the Ukrainian Institute, together with the Ukrainian Cultural Fund and the European Union programme House of Europe in 2020. Zapravka wants to ensure the visibility and systematic representation of Ukrainian art residencies in the international professional field, strengthen cultural ties and cooperation between Ukraine and the world at the institutional level through artistic residencies, and create new opportunities for cooperation between Ukrainian and international cultural professionals.

Thanks to this initiative, an online map of Ukrainian residencies has been created and is constantly updated. In 2023, Zapravka introduced the first Ukrainian-language toolkit on organizing art residencies in Ukraine. The primary motivation for developing this toolkit emerged from inquiries by individuals eager to launch their own art residencies but unsure where to begin. In partnership with the Ukrainian Museum in New York, Zapravka launched a grant programme. Through this initiative, 3 Ukrainian residencies received funding to support their teams.

About Anastasiia Manuliak
Anastasiia Manuliak is Head of Visual Arts at the Ukrainian Institute in Kyiv, where she represents the visual arts sector and runs programmes such as the international exhibition support programme Visualise. In 2022 she co-curated ArtsLink Assembly 2022: Greener Grass? Cultivating Transborder Connections Between Ukrainian Cultural Communities (Warsaw). Before joining the Institute in 2019, she worked as a cultural manager and independent curator. In 2019, she co-curated the National Biennale for Young Art Looks Like I’m Entering Our Garden in Kharkiv, Ukraine. She represents the Ukrainian Institute in a joint initiative with the Ukrainian Cultural Fund and the European Union's House of Europe programme. She is also a lecturer at Lviv National Academy of Arts.

About Jam Factory Art Center
Jam Factory Art Center is a contemporary art institution addressing the challenges of our time and taking a critical stance on global and local processes in society to strengthen and promote its development. Through exhibitions, theatrical performances, music events, educational initiatives, and community-oriented projects, it engages people in dialogue and enriches their experiences and knowledge.

About Bozhena Pelenska
Next to being the Programme & Executive Director of the Jam Factory Art Center, Bozhena Pelenska is an art and cultural manager, cultural anthropologist, and programme curator. Since 2015, she has led the transformation of a former jam factory into the thriving art centre it is nowadays, shaping its strategy, programming, partnerships, and operations. Bozhena has initiated and coordinated numerous artistic and cultural (music) programmes, including exhibitions, professional education projects, and residencies. She developed municipal grant programmes for cultural and educational organizations in 2007 and the HBCE grant programme in 2016. She holds an M.A. in Cultural Studies from Ivan Franko National University in Lviv and studied management at the Visegrad Institute of Management UCU. She has been a fellow in various programmes, including CEC ArtsLink in New York and the Art Management Programme at the DeVos Institute of Maryland University (US).

About the Yermilov Centre for Contemporary Art
The Yermilov Centre is a contemporary art centre in Kharkiv that opened in March 2012. Named after the renowned Kharkiv artist and Ukrainian avant-garde representative Vasyl Yermilov, it is the largest exhibition space in the city, showcasing contemporary art processes. Its mission is to promote social change and foster critical thinking through art, creating a platform for communication and interaction. Our priorities include encouraging artistic dialogue with the viewer and fostering international cooperation. The Kuzemin Yermilov Centre’s activities encompass exhibitions, art residencies, educational projects, and more. Following the full-scale Russian invasion, it continued its operations and, in February 2022, became a bomb shelter for the Kharkiv artistic community.

About the ART KUZEMYN residency
In 2016, the Yermilov Centre implemented an artistic residency programme, the ART KUZEMYN residency, in collaboration with the museums of Karazin University. In 2021, the residency was established in the countryside of the Sumy region, promoting communication among artists, curators, and art researchers while encouraging cultural decentralization. It's organised in cooperation with the local community of Kuzemyn village. Since 2022, the residency has also served as a shelter for artists, providing conditions and opportunities for recreation, research, and work.

About Nataliia Ivanova
Nataliia Ivanova has served as the Director of the Yermilov Centre since its establishment in March 2012 and the ART KUZEMIN residency since 2021. In addition to her directorial role, Nataliia is a lecturer in Art Management at the Department of Cultural Studies, Faculty of Philosophy, Karazin University. Her experience includes serving on the Expert Council on Contemporary Art at the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine from 2017 to 2020 and chairing the select commission for the national project at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2018. She has coordinated several international art residencies and curated many exhibitions, including Artificial Pain in Torun, Poland, and Personnel / Ukrainian Art of Wartime in 2023. She also fosters artistic collaboration through initiatives such as the Sense of Safety project in 2024.

Are you interested in working with Ukraine or in supporting its cultural sector? Feel free to contact our advisor Tijana Stepanovic.