Oksana Pohrebennyk
residency at Rietz, Tyrol

In this conversation, we meet Oksana Pohrebennyk, a Ukrainian visual artist whose work flows between observation, material exploration, and poetic reflection.

Who are you? What was your practice like before joining the FOCUS INTERNATIONAL Ukraine program?

My name is Oksana Pohrebennyk and I am a visual artist from Ukraine.
I’m not sure if I can call it a “before and after” joining the residency. I see it more like a river current. Something had already begun to surface before the trip, a kind of need, something that was pushing me, like a hidden language I wanted to understand. During the residency, I could jump into it, come into contact with that current. And now I feel that I’m still there, diving into its remains.

What did you do throughout your residency?

I observe a lot. I took my time to understand where I was, especially coming from Ukraine. I needed time to adapt a bit.

At the beginning, I started filming my forest walks. It was spontaneous. I wanted to keep a kind of memory of my routine to share with friends, and to watch maybe in a few years, like a time capsule video.

I traveled with my luggage full of latex, but I’m not used to working with materials, sculpture, or installations. That was one of my main motivations, to get in contact with materials and to have a studio where I could run all the tests I wanted. I don’t have enough space at home, and I don’t have a studio in Ukraine. So having an opportunity like this was very precious. I felt like a kid in a playground.
I could work with latex and clay. I also worked with materials I found in the forest, like wood, bones, and the foam animal figures from the Bogenparcours.

I dived into that “river current” as much as I wanted, until I started grasping the hidden language that was there. I began to enter into a dialogue with the materials, with things that were already present. It was like following a stream that leads you to a waterfall. You simply jump into its depths.

How do you think you’ve affected the environment you’ve been in?

A lot. I mean, I am used to working with what’s there and what kind of dialogue begins to emerge from a specific place. I don’t know if I can call it situated art, but it takes something from that approach.

Being surrounded by mountains felt like a kind of game. I had the impression that the mountains were playing hide and seek with me. They were showing me that there are things behind them, and that they can also move or disappear through the fog and clouds.
There was also the city. Innsbruck was something different. My favorite activity was visiting the chess players in the park. I have no idea how to play chess, but I could spend one or two hours just observing how (mostly) men play it. It felt like a live performance. Again, chess is a “language” I don’t speak, but through observation, I could sense things.

Another of my rituals was visiting the bookshop called Wagner’sche. There is a section with books in English. I found one titled A Village Life by Louise Glück. Almost every time I passed by the shop, I would go in and read one or two poems. On the last day, I bought it. Now I feel that I can always come back to the Alps through her words.

What are you taking with you from the residency?

Probably the understanding that some processes need time, their own time. Usually, I observe a lot and then do things quickly. And if things don’t work that way, I tend to get frustrated. So here, I had to learn to observe differently, to give myself time in a different way, to come into contact with that language.

How do you feel about the artistic result of the residency? What is it?
There will be an exhibition I worked on at Grund 1535 on October 3, curated by Briggite Eggers and Anastasiia Daichenko. It will include some of the objects I created during the two-month residency, as well as a video art piece that I am still working on.

Stay tuned for more interviews with participants of FOCUS INTERNATIONAL Ukraine Program!

Мaria Kardash
traineeship program at
GALERIE ST. BARBARA / musik+

© Maria Kardash; photo — Oksana Pohrebennyk

In this conversation, we meet Mariia Kardash, a participant in the FOCUS INTERNATIONAL Ukraine program, whose practise weaves through performance, research, and cultural practice across borders. Here is her story, shaped by movement, curiosity, and a deep engagement with the cultural landscape around her.

Who are you? What was your practice like before joining the FOCUS INTERNATIONAL Ukraine program?

I am a performing artist and dance anthropologist. The focus of my work is on the human body in motion — I practice and research dance, approaching it not only as an aesthetic expression or physical activity but as a cultural phenomenon that carries social and political weight. My professional life embraces both academic and creative projects, sometimes expanding into cultural management and parallel art fields, as during my internship at Office Ukraine Graz and here at Galerie St. Barbara.

Originally from Izmail in the southern Odesa region, I’ve been nomading around Europe since 2018 and have lived in Norway, France, the UK, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia for work and studies. Looks like I’m nomading around Austria now: I’ve been based here since 2024 and have already lived in Vienna, Graz, and Innsbruck.

What were your main responsibilities at Musik+ / Galerie St. Barbara?

My internship at Galerie St. Barbara fell during a calm period at the end of the 2024/2025 musical season, so I didn’t have that many active tasks and could dedicate more time to exploring the history and guiding principles of Galerie St. Barbara and its key initiatives: Osterfestival Tirol and the Musik+ events programme.

While the Osterfestival had already ended by the time of my arrival, I still got the chance to work at four Musik+ events in May and June. My main role was to support the organisational processes and assist at the events: preparing venues, welcoming guests, and helping with logistics. Besides that, I also contributed to various office tasks and wrote texts — all while getting to know the institution’s background and learning how it functions.

How could you contribute with your knowledge and skills to the institution itself?

I’ve found a point of connection to Galerie St. Barbara through my experience in Performing Arts from both sides of the curtain: on stage and backstage. Even before my life took a nomadic turn, I used to organise small-scale dance events in Ukraine and later took coordinating roles in theatrical and interdisciplinary projects abroad. This experience helped me to support the musical evenings during my internship.

As a cultural scholar, I’m also interested in the history of art initiatives and their role in shaping the sociocultural landscape — especially one as long-established as Galerie St. Barbara. My curiosity led me to investigate materials from earlier editions of the Osterfestival, digitise them, and compose a text about the festival based on what I discovered. Not to a lesser extent, my understanding of the festival’s legacy and its evolving vision — which I translated into the above-mentioned text — was shaped through the many fruitful conversations I had with the Galerie St. Barbara team.

What are you taking with you from the traineeship?

Of course, among the important outcomes are the practical experience and understanding of the work processes within a cultural association, as well as behind performative public events of varying complexity. But there is something beyond that — and it’s my deepened relationship with contemporary classical music, which for me became the main artistic medium to focus on during these two months.

Now I approach music in the same way as I do dance: as a product of historical context, reflecting the epoch from which it emerged (and that’s a perspective I’m taking further into my dance studies). Moreover, my movement practice has always been informed by its connection with music — as a ritual of attentive ‘listening’ and finding the immediate response in my body — and I feel that I left the internship with an enhanced ability to listen and quickly immerse into a state that sound dictates.

Speaking of immersion: this deep dive into Tyrol’s cultural life brought many experiences and connections. Being among other creatives, observing what they do and the art they make, ultimately strengthens my artistic voice. And that, in the end, is what matters most to me.

Stay tuned for more interviews with participants of FOCUS INTERNATIONAL Ukraine Program!