Between Past and Future: Ukrainian Art in the Face of War 

A talk and discussion with Kateryna Iakovlenko, Senior Research Fellow at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) at University College London (UCL) 

Moderators: Professor Eric A. Ivison and Adjunct Assistant Professor Joseph Frusci 

Friday 30 September, @ 2:00 – 3:30 pm on Zoom: 

Register https://bit.ly/3QSDZAM 

About this Talk: The Russian war against Ukraine began in 2014 and affected visual art with a so-called archival or documentary turn: the younger generation of artists became interested in historical topics primarily dedicated to complicated and traumatic events. Today, both the future and the past are at risk. As the cruelty of the war shaped the aesthetics and materiality, artists took on active roles – witnesses and participants of the events. In this lecture, Kateryna Iakovlenko will focus on contemporary Ukrainian art as an eyewitness of war and a method of dealing with trauma. 

About the Speaker: Kateryna Iakovlenko is a Luhansk-born Ukrainian visual art researcher and writer. Kateryna is completing her postgraduate thesis (ABD) in New Media and Communication at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. She worked as reporter and deputy web editor of the Ukrainian newspaper The Day (2012-14), curator and program manager of the Donbas Studies Research Project at Izolyatsia (2014-15), and researcher and curator of public programs at PinchukArtCentre in Kyiv (2016-21). Among her publications are the books Gender Research (2015), Why There Are Great Women Artists in Ukrainian Art (2019), “Euphoria and Fatigue: Ukrainian Art and Society after 2014” (with Tatiana Kochubinska) in a 2019 special issue of Obieg (Magazine of the Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland). Kateryna’s current research touches upon the role of art and culture during political transformation and war. 

Please join us for this fascinating talk and discussion on Zoom. Please register prior to the start of the event to ensure you arrive before the lecture starts.