soviet, empty, yellow-blue: what is happening with the public spaces of ukrainian cities?

During the online event the photographer presented his documentary project “On Republic’s Monuments”, shared a visual chronology of his observations of the changes of the memorial landscape in Ukraine and, using real examples, showed how the public spaces have transformed under the influence of the decommunisation law. The presentation was followed by a discussion with the project curators Oksana Dovgopolova and Kateryna Semenyuk, and responses to questions from the audience.

In this meeting we did not intend to judge whether what is happening with the Soviet monumental heritage in Ukraine is “good” or “bad”, but to talk about artistic research of such processes. Do we change together with the changes happening around us? How can we understand these changes? Sometimes only an artist can set the lens in such a way that makes us ask questions, which we had not raised before.

Online stream of the discussion took place on July 22, 2020, on the Facebook page of the Past / Future / Art project.

Title photo by Yevgen Nikiforov, from the series “On Republic’s Monuments”, 2014–2020