IZOLYATSIA Announces its Programme for 2019
In 2019 the IZOLYATSIA Foundation presents a multidisciplinary programme which simultaneously reflects the history of the institution and appeals to the wider Ukrainian and global context. Since the Donetsk platform for culture initiatives went into exile more than 4 years ago, IZOLYATSIA has become an example of cultural decentralisation, realising numerous projects and starting discourses which are otherwise suppressed in public life.
The foundation of IZOLYATSIA’s activity is research, experimental and interdisciplinary approaches. The foundation is reducing the number of exhibition projects it organises in Kyiv and increasing its activity in the sphere of international and regional participation in research projects, residencies and mobility programmes. In parallel to this the IZONE Creative Community, an IZOLYATSIA project in Kyiv, which is developing as an independent cultural hub and continues to support representatives of the creative industries and agents of change from all over Ukraine.
International and Interregional Cooperation
i-Portunes — Pilot Mobility Scheme for Artists and Culture Workers
April — October
In April 2019, together with the Goethe-Institut, Institut Francais and Nida Arts Colony, IZOLYATSIA will launch a pilot mobility scheme for artists and culture workers. As part of the project, financed by the Creative Europe programme, 500 artists and cultural managers will be able to make professional trips to the programme’s participant countries over the course of 6 months. More information in April.
EMERGENCE: Living Heritage / Reframing Memory
Throughout the year
A long-term artistic project, as part of which IZOLYATSIA, the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and six art institutions from Europe are organising a series of events on the topic of cooperation between individuals with a background in culture and history. The main goal of the project is to rethink the question of memory through art. The project will last for two years and will include conferences, exhibitions, workshops and residencies.
This project is supported and partially financed by the Creative Europe programme.
Culture Bus
April — October
IZOLYATSIA will buy a bus in order to transform it into a mobile art-space. The bus will go around Ukraine’s small cities, chosen by means of an open call, and the Foundation’s team will organise a mini-festival and a series of masterclasses, travelling exhibitions, cinema screenings, concerts and so on in each location. This project is aimed at supporting the process of decentralisation and promoting the development of culture in small towns, with special attention being paid to frontline regions and the Donbas.
This project is supported and partially financed by the US Embassy in Ukraine.
Educational Programme of the Mime Wave Festival
June
During the Mime Wave Festival, which is dedicated to the development of physical theatre, a parallel educational programme will take place in IZONE, which will include open lectures and discussions as well as a summer school for theatre managers. Participants in the School will be able to develop their project, pitch it and receive financing and organisational support in order to realise it.
Façade Project
June — December
In June 2019, together with Kunsthalle Praha, IZOLYATSIA will present a work by Ivan Svetlichnyi, created specially for the facade of an industrial building, currently undergoing reconstruction, which will house Kunsthalle Praha in a few years time. The project will be accompanied by a public programme developed by IZOLYATSIA.
Art Wednesday
Each Wednesday
An IZOLYATSIA project that is already in its third year running, the aim of which is to support young Ukrainian artists. Every Wednesday in the IZONE Creative Community young artists/photographers/performers/designers and others organise their own Art Wednesday. The participants decide the format of the event themselves: it can be a presentation, an exhibition, a film screening, a performance, a lecture and/or a discussion.
Residency Programme
IZOLYATSIA’s residency programme is aimed at supporting professionals working in contemporary art.
Taking into account the specifics of the institution and the socio-political context in Ukraine, IZOLYATSIA’s interest is primarily in social and politically motivated artistic practices, activism, urbanism, creative industries, art in the public space and art which involves local communities. Preference is given to artists who, with the help of diverse media, investigate themes of postindustrial revitalisation, geopolitics, migration and forced people movements, and also new critical interpretations of history.
In 2019, with the support of the US Embassy, five American artists will visit the Foundation, as well as three performance artists, as part of the Creative Europe programme in collaboration with the Prague Quadrennial.
Donbas Studies
This project’s public programme, dedicated to the challenges of deindustrialisation and war in the Donbas, will continue in 2019. Special focus remains on the artistic and cultural practices of participation, memory politics, oral history, everyday life and the postindustrial legacy of the region.
This year Donbas Studies is also starting an international programme aimed at developing the potential of communities in the region’s monocities. The programme is launched together with the the University of St Andrews’ Centre for Russian, Soviet, Central and Eastern European Studies (UK) and the Centre for Urban History of East Central Europe (Lviv). As part of this project, from the 23rd of June until the 6th of July 2019 a summer school for researchers, artists and cultural activists will take place.
Exhibition Programme
Armed and Dangerous
Exhibition-series; January 31 — March 17
A project platform, which brings together a group of artists and directors who are working at the intersection between contemporary art and experimental cinema. A series of experimental films investigates the militarisation of contemporary Ukrainian society. The exhibition offers a comprehensive view of the ideology of violence through the prism of many people’s experiences — and unlimited quantity of opinions and an unlimited quantity of interpretations. The exhibition is accompanied by a public programme.
This project is realised by the IZOLYATSIA Foundation and the YermilovCentre with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation.
Maksim Finogeev, #Through_Happiness_Codes
Site-specific installation on Kyiv citylights; February — March
In autumn 2018, IZOLYATSIA in partnership with BigMedia held a competition for Ukrainian artists to create a project using outdoor advertising as the medium under the title [Your Ad Here?]. The winner after a public vote was the project #Through_Happiness_Codes, by the Odesa artist Maksim Finogeev. The project consists of 10 citylights which are placed along a pedestrian route. The artist looked at the transit zones on a map showing the distribution of bus stops and plotted a truncated route around the capital based on this, where each image depicts a thematic situation — the purchase of a dream home or car, a celebration, a concert. In such a way, the advert visualises a modern model of Happiness.
Shirin Neshat, Turbulent
Installation; April 4 — June 16
A two-channel video installation illustration gender separation in Iranian society and underlining the absence of women’s suffrage and lack of basic rights and freedoms. Placed in the context of Ukrainian elections, the work underlines the patriarchal structure of Ukrainian society, where politics is still predominantly run by men, who have an exclusive right to power.
This project is loaned from the collection of the Faurschou Foundation, Copenhagen.
Jozef Pilat Let’s Make a Paradise Together
Exhibition; June 26 — September 1
This exhibition tells a utopian story about a Slovak village where the residents suffer from government repression. Rebellious peasants come together and decide to abandon Czechoslovakia together in order to create their own personal heaven on the Moon. The basis of the exhibition is the television documentary by Ladislav Kudelka A Village Filled with Defiance (Czechoslovakia, 1969).
Project created in partnership with Publikum.sk
The Corrosion of Character. L'uomo Flessibile
Exhibition; September 12 — November 3
This exhibition, featuring Ukrainian and Italian artists, owes its name to Richard Sennett’s book about the position of the person under ‘new’ capitalism as viewed through the prism of labour. Labour today is defined by notions like flexibility and fluidity. Research on this topic will take place at IZOLYATSIA, now located in the Kyiv Shipbuilding and Ship Repair Plant complex, and IZONE, which brings together representatives of cultural industries in a creative community, and thus differing labour models are found all in one place.
This project is realised with the support of the Fondazione la Quadriennale di Roma and the Istituto Italiano in Kyiv.
Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Repair (working title)
Site-specific installation; November, 2019 — January, 2020
The world-famous artist with Tunisian-Ukrainian roots will for the first time present a project in Ukraine. She will create a complete installation in the exhibition hall of the IZONE Creative Community, offering the viewer the chance to feel the physical discomfort of a transitional period — from the Soviet past to the formation of new identities in modern Ukraine.