Ukraine is under siege following a full-scale military invasion by Russia on 24 February 2022

The planning and operation of cultural institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic requires flexibility, the use of adaptive strategies and non-standard approaches. IZOLYATSIA continues its systematic work on new and long-term projects and shares the following updates:

  • In April, Coming Out of Isolation 2.0 will manifest itself in a series of publications that will elaborate on the concept of the project and the process of filming by residents, which is currently ongoing. A special media project is being prepared for the International Day Against Homophobia on May 17th.

  • In April, IZOLYATSIA launches a new season of Art Wednesday events, the first in an online format to rethink a long-term project in the context of quarantine-related isolation. The project is a space for expression and dialogue between artists and representatives of the Ukrainian creative sector. The format of each event is determined by the participants together with the project curators.

    • Program for April 2020:

    • 1.04 — Art-Wednesday: Piotr Armianovski. The artist, performer and director talks about his experience of isolation in Poznan, new VR projects and Ukrainian theater.

    • 15.04 — Art Wednesday: Residences. Representatives of House of Europe, UCF, IZOLYATSIA, Muzychi Residence, Nazar Voytovych Residence, and the Ukrainian Institute will discuss artistic residencies in the situation of restricted mobility and closed borders.

    • 22.04 — Art Wednesday: YourArt. The editorial staff, led by editor-in-chief Nastia Kalita will present the platform and speak about the challenges and audiences.

  • The Foundation's residency program uses a forced pause in the implementation of the scheduled residences for networking and dialogue with former residents resulting in a series of short interviews.

  • As part of the EMERGENCE: Living Heritage/Reframing Memory, a series of online workshops lead by Austrian artist Bernadette Anzengruber will take place in late April. Registration details coming soon.

  • The American Arts Incubator - Ukraine 2020 project will be conducted fully online from April 23 to May 16. The central theme of the project is artificial intelligence, and this year's mentor is American artist Ellen Pearlman. The project’s public event schedule will be announced shortly.

  • IZOLYATSIA jointly with Trans Europe Halles launched the Startup Support Program 2020. Within this program, three finalists — Kharatian Experiential Center for the Performing Arts (Gyumri, Armenia), Ta (r) dino 6 (Baku, Azerbaijan) and Salaam Cinema (Baku, Azerbaijan)—were selected for expert support in 2020. Experts will be selected from among the members of the Trans Europe Halles network and the IZOLYATSIA Foundation partners.

  • IZOLYATSIA continues to prepare the site-specific project My Heart is Empty as a Mirror by Italian artist Gian Maria Tosatti, two episodes of which are to take place in Kyiv and Odessa.

  • The Foundation team also continues to develop a Grounding theme and began to share material that is accumulated during internal discussions around texts and artistic projects related to the topic. The first publication is a glossary of terms to help audiences understand the concept of Anthropocene. 

  • Work continues on the summer residence initiated by Donbas Studies in Sievierodonetsk and Svyatogorsk, which was supported by the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation and the organization of an international residence in partnership with the House of Europe program. On the project website you can find the latest publications commissioned for the project. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, some activities may be postponed for several months.

  • Gurtobus. On April 1, the application procedure for local partners has been concluded, and the team is now finalizing the results of the opening call. At the same time, the Borscht project was launched, which summarizes the materials collected by the team during last year's trips. In addition to the actual publication of borscht recipes from different regions of Ukraine, it is also planned to publish comprehensive anthropological research and a report in collaboration with Hedgehog and Platforma. Stay tuned for the #borschtinaction!