Ukrainian cultural institutions during the wartime. Dnipro experience
Lecture by Iryna Polikarchuk

On February 24, 2022, the lives of Ukrainians were divided into BEFORE and AFTER. Since then, thousands of tragedies have occurred, and today the war continues. Despite everything, we learned not only to survive and fight for freedom but also to continue living and making social changes. All Ukrainian cultural institutions were forced to cancel their programs a year ago. Someone relocated or closed, and others began adapting to new conditions. We will talk about it at the lecture on April 27, mainly focusing on the experience of Dnipro (an industrial city bordering the front line).

Iryna Polikarchuk – director and public program curator of the Artsvit Gallery (Dnipro, Ukraine); co-founder of the Dnipro Centre for Contemporary Culture; teacher of the History of Modern Culture at the Dnipropetrovsk College of Arts and Culture. She creates the public program of the Artsvit Gallery (exhibitions, educational programs, research, residencies, publications), establishes partnerships (national and international), coordinates the team’s work, and manages projects. She is a co-curator and coordinator of the Ukrainian part of the Secondary Archive project, founded by the Katarzyna Kozyra Foundation (Warsaw).

Now she is a resident of the Labirynt Gallery in Lublin. During the residency, Iryna aims to learn more and take over Galeria Labirynt’s experience in working with children and its inclusive approaches to the audience. She will also share information about Ukrainian creative society and talk about experiences of Ukrainian cultural institutions during the ongoing war.

Photo: Olia Vasylets. Exhibition “Protective Layer” by Kostiantyn Zorkin