“I was a bit naïve about the duration of the war”
The Ukrainian curator Anastasiya Yarovenko about her exhibition at the Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, which was supported by the BMKOES.
Anastasiya Yarovenko. Photo: Richard Zazworka
The emergency project “Can you see what I see” was organized and curated by Anastasiya Yarovenko, an artist and curator born in Ukraine and currently based in Vienna. Her visionary initiative involved inviting five artists from Ukraine to participate in the project. The endeavor received generous support from the Lentos Museum in Linz and BMKOES, enabling the showcasing of their works in public spaces and the museum’s foyer during the summertime.
Anastasiya Yarovenko graciously shared with us the essence of the project, how it resonated with the audience, and her personal reflections on art in times of conflict.
By collaborating with artists from Ukraine, the project aimed to shed light on the creative expressions emerging from a region marked by turmoil. The support from the Lentos Museum and BMKOES played a crucial role in bringing this vision to life and enabling a wider audience to experience the artworks.
How did you come up with the idea for the project? What was it about, and which audience did you want to reach?
On February 24, 2022 lifes of all Ukrainians inside and outside of Ukraine have changed tremendously, when Russia invaded Ukraine, marking a major escalation of the war, which began in 2014 resulting in thousands of deaths, Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II.
The first months I spent 24/7 volunteering: sending medicaments, helping to evacuate, finding apartments in Austria, translating a lot of texts and documents. At some point I realized that there are already many volunteers who are busy with similar tasks, but there is not much happening in the field I am familiar with.
It was important to make a clear statement. The news continued to flash and most of the local population got used to them or tired and it was no longer a shock although the war is not yet over. In April 2022 I contacted Hemma Schmutz, director of Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz and suggested to make an emergency intervention. Two months later with the financial support of the Austrian Ministry of Culture and the fantastic Lentos team we were able to open an exhibition which was accessible to everyone over the span of summer 2022.
Thinking about the intervention in April 2022 I was naïve to believe that by the time the exhibition will open in June 2022 there would be no need to talk about the war, that we would talk about its consequences and reconstruction plan. But in fact even now, 1,5 years later, we don’t know when this unfolding catastrophe will be over.
Installation view of the emergency project “Can you see what I see”, Lentos museum. Photo: Reinhard Haider
How did you decide about the artists you invited? Did you work with them before?
“Can you see what I see” was a reaction to the fast developing situation in Ukraine and support to Ukrainian artists affected by the war. The selected artists were partially in Austria and partially in Ukraine as male artists of military age are not allowed to leave the country. The program consisted of a public space installation outside of the museum and a foyer screening situation with videos, films and drawings that are connected to the current situation as well as the situation in Ukraine during the past eight years since the first Russian invasion in Ukraine in 2014.
Most of the artists I know for many years and follow their practices. Alevtina Kakhidze known for her illustrations of the impacts of the war in eastern Ukraine prepared a slide show with drawings on the reaction of the West, Russian culture and their “attention seeking” gestures, about Ukraine and its cultural front during the war.
I met Kateryna Lysovenko in Vienna, since she moved to Austria at the beginning of the war. Shown works are from the latest series of the artist, which she was developing during Russia’s open aggression against Ukraine. Resistance, will and the acquisition of real strength – main leitmotif of this series.
I have studied with Oleksiy Radynski in Ukraine and I follow his practice for quite some time. The film ‘Circulation’, directed by the artist in 2020, presented his three years’ observation of the transformation of the landscape of Kyiv, condensed into 11 minutes of screen time.
Mykola Ridnyi presented two short films. The main object in ‘Shelter’ is an underground shelter repurposed for a kind of school that delivers pre-service military training. In modern Ukraine, many fallout shelters from the past have since been sealed. A few have been converted to serve new functions, adapted to different needs through individual creativity, spurred on by an overall lack of facilities. For the short film ‘Father’s story’ Ridnyi asked his father to make a video tour of the cellar beneath the rural house in which his family used to live. Both films were made before the full scale invasion but they are about a new Ukrainian reality.
What was the reaction of the audience to the project?
The preparation helped me to stay sane and focused since the period for the project implementation, fund applications and the opening day was relatively short. After reading news about more and more destruction caused by Russia in Ukraine a night before the opening I thought that the scale of intervention and all artistic/curatorial efforts are ridiculous in the face of the war and losses. I felt helpless and lost.
The day after the intervention opening and press conference many media (diverse Upper Austria newspapers, Salzburg newspapers, TV and internet channels) wrote about it. It was a small victory. It is not easy to get a media coverage for a cultural event in general, giving media a new topic to start talking about Ukraine again in the middle of the fog.
The location of the museum and the type of the exhibition made it possible for thousands of passers-by and visitors to view the works of Ukrainian artists with no entrance fee or special effort. The banks of the Danube in Linz are very popular in summer, so the timing of the intervention was very well chosen and therefore made the intervention very visible.
Installation view of the emergency project “Can you see what I see”. In front a work by Anastasiya Yarovenko, Lentos museum. Photo: Reinhard Haider
What was your experience working with a big art institution in an emergency situation?
In this particular exhibition I appreciate the flexibility of Lentos the most. For such a big institution with an intensive program the preparation of the intervention was an additional stretch of resources and time. I am grateful that Hemma Schmutz and the museum’s team supported Ukrainian artists in such a difficult time by giving a space through the art as well as showing an underrepresented Ukrainian professional contemporary art scene in Western Europe.
Please say a few words about yourself; where are you from, and what kind of artistic work do you do while living in Ukraine and Austria?
As an artist I am interested in objects, which themselves have no definite state, surfaces that transform into spaces, while spaces turn into grids for the reality. ‘Space’ is understood in many ways. Whether it concerns physical spaces, or imaginary ones, temporary situations or political outlines, whether it deals with a site-specific situation or a mind-set. My work deals with space as a situation, as a material gesture, as a collective image. Between form and function, between space and dimension, it creates specific opportunities and associations.
Norms that define the space we as humans are claiming, is what I am also focusing on, approaching the idea and the concept of the norm in society. Speaking of “being normal” and of this term, that is constantly used to describe our world, but to the same extent is narrowing down and sorting it.
As a starting point I often use personal circumstances but also an extensive amount of research material which is then translated into substance that reveals new perspectives in a new site specific context.
There are a lot of discussions about the power and powerlessness of art among art circles in the face of the war. What is your opinion about it? What can art and artists do in these brutal times?
There are times when we all feel powerless, constant news about death and destruction affect us on each level of our being. Some find sanity in producing artworks as much as they can, some are completely speechless and silent. There is no recipe what art can do in these times. Art existed in many forms during many wars in the history but most of us have never lived through the war in real before. Each of us is on his/her own circle of processing and coping.
“White Noise” by Anastasiya Yarovenko
Anastasiya Yarovenko, artist and curator, lives and works in Vienna. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (2015) and holds an MA in Theory of Literature and Comparative Studies (2006) from Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Anastasiya participated in several Biennales, including School of Kyiv — Kyiv Biennial (UA) in 2015. She was awarded several art prizes such as Prize of the Kunsthalle Wien, START scholarship of the Federal Ministry for Culture and she is also a recipient of the MAK Schindler Scholarship Program (USA). Her work has been presented at international exhibitions such as Lentos Kunstmuseum (AT), xhibit (AT), Köttinspektionen Uppsala (SE), Sculpture Park, Vienna MQ (AT), Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart (DE), Mackey Apartments, Los Angeles (USA), Kunsthalle Wien (AT), Odessa Museum of Western and Oriental Art (UA), Nest (NL) and others.