7 July – 6 August 2023
Consciously or unconsciously, we all have an impact on the environment around us. Being an integral part of society, each of us participates in the creation, development and formation of the city every day. Getting to know a city always begins with its architecture: any small or large building, a shabby Khrushchev house or a gray panel building, a luxurious historic palace or an exquisite private estate, modern elite high-rise buildings or simple "boxes", dizzying office skyscrapers or small architectural forms – all of these form its face, its image, its history. Every building has a soul: human destinies are connected with its appearance on the map, and sometimes the life of an entire generation can be closely intertwined with one of them. A city is an integral organism, and thus the destruction or loss of any part irreversibly changes its appearance, leaving deep scars that will always remind us of the past...
The study of this difficult topic brought together young Kyiv artists whose work is presented in this project. The artists began to comprehend the role of architectural heritage first in the context of the barbaric building up of Ukrainian cities, and later in the devastating consequences of the war. War destroys everything in its path, changing familiar landscapes beyond recognition. Ruins are the fate of many residential buildings and historical monuments in our country, and today the world's attention is focused on them. "Won't I be in one of them?" is a silent question that hangs in the air during every air raid.
This part of our reality is documented by the authors in their pieces, focusing on the losses incurred by Ukrainian architecture: from literal paintings of modern cities by Maksym Malylio and Anatoliy Pogorilyi to metaphorical ones by Roman Dorchynets, through the image of a person in a state of anabiosis. The paintings are organically complemented by graphic compositions by Orest Hirnyi, whose main activity is the creation of architectural projects. A special part of the exhibition is the three-dimensional spatial works by Yelyzaveta Derzhavytska – miniatures of destroyed buildings with interiors recreated to the smallest detail, which make it possible to feel the effect of presence.
Each artist reflects the theme of the wounded city in their own way in their works, immersing us in a whirlwind of emotions and experiences associated with the destruction of what we call home. But the goal of the creative group is not a simple statement of facts: each work has become an opportunity to draw even more attention of the whole world to the losses of our culture and art, with the belief in our hearts to preserve what remains and restore what is no longer there.
Project team: Olena Borymska, Anastasia Shvydiuk, Oleksandra Ryzhova, Oleksandra Kabakova, Iryna Khomenko
Full ticket price: 150 UAH.
