Ukrainian Contemporary Art After 2014

Kateryna Iakovlenko, Fulbright Research Fellow at the Scientific Shevchenko Society in the USA
Moderated by Emily Channell-Justice, Director, Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program, HURI

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Abstract

Euromaidan and the war in Donbas have played an instrumental role in the development of contemporary Ukrainian art. The tragic events forced a new generation of artists to reflect on recent trauma and tragic events in Ukraine's history. For example, artists have begun to pay more attention to state and personal archives, Ukraine's postindustrial heritage, and ecology in recent decades. This generation has built new forms of collectivity, solidarity, and support for artists and other representatives, such as soldiers, immigrants, emigrants, workers, etc. Through their art, they create intellectual discussions about Ukrainian society and its possible future. 

About the Speaker

Kateryna Iakovlenko is a contemporary art researcher and art critic. She got an MA in journalism and social communication at the Donetsk National University. For six years she has been researching the transformation of the heroic narrative of Donbas through new media for a postgraduate thesis at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. Iakovlenko worked as deputy web editor in The Day newspaper (2013-2014), as curator and program manager for the Donbas Studies Research Project at the IZOLYATSIA platform for cultural initiatives (2014-2015), and as a researcher and public program curator at the PinchukArtCentre (2015-2021).

Her current research interest touches on the subject of art during political transformations and war and explores women and gender optics in visual culture. She was the editor of the books Gender Studies by the Donbas Studies Research Project (2015) and Why There Are Great Women Artists in Ukrainian Art (2019), and she was a co-editor of the special issue of Obieg magazine titled Euphoria and Fatigue: Ukrainian Art and Society after 2014 (2020), Curatorial Handbook (2020) and Nikita Kadan. Stone hits stone (2021). She is now a Fulbright Research Fellow at the Scientific Shevchenko Society in the USA. 

Moderator: Emily Channell-Justice, Director, Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program, Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University

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