ABOUT US

Past / Future / Art is a memory culture platform that carries out commemorative, research, and art projects and establishes discussion programs to engage broader audiences in working through the past

What we do

We curate art exhibitions in Ukraine and abroad, organise artistic laboratories and memorial competitions, and develop educational projects to engage a broader audience in working with the past. Also, we initiate public discussions about collective memory and collaborate with the Ukrainian state and public actors in the field of commemoration.

Our projects include the first specialised glossary of terms used in work with collective memory and research into transitional justice and regional identity transformation in Ukraine.

The project was founded in 2019 by the NGO Cultural Practices in partnership with forumZFD (The Civil Peace Service) in Ukraine. You can learn here more about the core values of our project.

Meet the team

Oksana Dovgopolova

A co-founder and curator of the Past / Future / Art memory culture platform, PhD, professor at Kyiv School of Economics, Memory Studies Association member

She lives in Odesa and has worked in higher and informal education. Also, she has participated in dialogue initiatives focusing on social reconciliation in the context of collective memory. Her research interests span collective memory transformations in Ukraine during the Russia-Ukraine war, Odesa city mythos, and more. From 2018 to 2019, she curated the experimental Memory Lab unit at Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center. In 2019, she founded the Past / Future / Art memory culture platform with Kateryna Semenyuk.

Kateryna Semenyuk

A cultural manager, curator, and co-founder of the Past / Future / Art memory culture platform, head of the NGO Cultural Practices

A Kyiv resident, she has been working in visual arts since 2010, focusing on artistic approaches to working with collective memory. From 2010 to 2017, she was the head of the Ya Gallery art centre in Dnipro. In 2019, she coordinated the National Pavilion of Ukraine “The Shadow of a Dream Cast Upon Giardini Della Biennale” at the 58th Venice Biennale. While working at the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center in 2018 and 2019, she was responsible for international exhibitions and the activity of the experimental Memory Lab unit. In 2019, she teamed up with Oksana Dovgopolova to found the Past / Future / Art memory culture platform.

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Kateryna and Oksana focused on finding a new language for commemorating the Russia-Ukraine war. In 2023, the two curated such exhibitions as “From 1914 till Ukraine” at Kunstmuseum Stuttgart (Germany) and “Ground Shadows” at Kazerne Dossin: Memorial, Museum and Documentation Center on Holocaust and Human Rights (Belgium). Also, they participated in the 18th International Architecture Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia as part of the Ukrainian pavilion with an exhibition titled “What Cannot Be Lost” the same year. In 2024, they produced the Ukrainian national pavilion “From South to North” at the inaugural Malta Biennale. Also, they co-organised and curated the Memorialization Practices Lab — an educational and research project aiming to find a visual language for the Russia-Ukraine war and broaden the approaches to creating memorials.