ARTIFAKE takeover – stories from Ukraine

Artists from Ukraine take over our Instagram profile in a first-hand account from various locations in Ukraine talking about the contexts of artistic work during the war.

The community action takes place as part of the ARTIFAKE project. Art Invades Fakes is a transnational project, which aims to promote media literacy and critical thinking in Ukraine, Poland and Armenia by exploring propaganda through transnational street art.

We are sharing ArtTransparent’s social media account with the artists who are working in Ukraine. Within the framework of the ARTIFAKE project we invite ukrainian creators to show their everyday in the country as well as their projects and ways of acting. The participants of the project are Yaroslav Futymskyi, Katya Libkind, Mykhailo Melnychenko, Denys Pankratov and Stanislav Turina. Weeklong takeovers by each of the invited artists will present direct accounts from different locations in Ukraine revealing contexts of artistic work in wartime. 

We thank Yuriy Biley for his advice.

23.08 – 28.08 Yaroslav Futymskyi

(b. 1987) is an artist whose multidisciplinary practice engages rural and regional narratives, old methods of making, and the pursuit of a personal identity understood in relation to evolving surroundings and circumstances. Futymskyi frequently works with performance, photography, drawing and installation, often using found and inherited materials. The artist lives and works in multiple locations. At present, he is primarily based in Lviv, Ukraine. His work has been exhibited in numerous international and Ukrainian exhibitions, including at Detenpyla Gallery, Galeria Labirynt, Shukhliada, and Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz.

30.08 – 04.09 Denys Pankratov

 is a curator and artist, with the focus on the representation of archives, the history and functioning of the museum as a public institution, the history of women’s, workers’ and national movements of Western Ukraine at the beginning of the 20th century. In 2013, graduated from the “Art Course” under the curatorship of Kateryna Badyanova and Lada Nakonechnaya. Since 2015, co-founder of the art organization “Method Fund”. Since 2019, Pankratov lives and works in Lviv, and researches the history of women’s, labor and national movements, the artistic avant-garde of Western Ukraine at the beginning of the 20th century, as well as taking part in social activist initiatives. Since 2021, he is a co-founder and co-curator of the independent semi-private exhibition space “Mizhkimnatnyi  prostir”. Since March 2022, he participates in the “Kuchnia” initiative and a number of related projects.


06.09 – 11.09 Katya Libkind

 is an artist based in Kyiv, Ukraine. Graduate of the National Academy of fine art and architecture, department of set-design in 2016. Her artistic practice engages a variety of media, including painting, video, installation, performance, and stage art. Katya is a co-founder of “Ateliernormalno” (“a project by artists with or without Down syndrome”) and a member of “Montage” art-group.  As Ukho’s head-artist she staged the operas of Gervasoni, Cella, Sciarrino for National Opera of Ukraine. Her objects and videos often build upon a process of very careful observation of herself and her closest surrounding. In many cases they either document a performative action, or contain a potential for interaction with a viewer in them. Building on processuality, borderline candidness, and an intuitive, direct emotional experience of reality Katya’s work touches on the issues of personal boundaries, conditionality of perception, the very idea of norm or beauty.


13.09 – 18.09 Mykhailo Melnychenko

was born in 1985 in the family of military officer Mykhailo Mykhailovych Melnichenko, in the city of Blagovishchensk, Amur Region and has been living in Ukraine since 1990. In 2005, he went to work as a system administrator at a plant located on the border with the European Union. Since 2009, he began to take an active interest in contemporary visual art and has a long practice as a VJ, as well as a photo reporter. Melnychenko is the organiser of the DOCUDAYS festival with screenings of documentaries about people’s rights in the city of Uzhgorod. He also organizes photo exhibitions in the Ilko gallery. He was a participant in group exhibitions of modern art held in Uzhgorod, and had a personal exhibition at the Periscope UA project. He was one of the organizers of the independent post-graffiti festival. In parallel, he is engaged in photo reportage and after February 24.02.2022 has started his personal early conceptual documentary photo project.


20.09 – 25.09 Stanislav Turina

 was born in 1988 in Makiivka, Donetsk region, Ukraine. Grown up at Mukachevo, Transcarpathia region. Graduated from Lviv National Academy of Arts. In 2019 he was awarded the scholarship the Gaude Polonia Programme in Lublin. Works in the media of graphics, sculpture, embroidery, and text. Co-founder and member of the Black Circle Festival, Detenpyla gallery, Open Group, and ateliernormalno. Since 2018 works as curator and co-curator at ateliernormalno, a studio for artists with and without Down Syndrome. Lives and works in Kyiv, Ukraine, where working as volunteer and help people with disabilities.

https://www.instagram.com/fundacja_arttransparent

For more information about the ARTIFAKE project, click here or visit https://artifake.org.

The ARTIFAKE project is implemented by Internews-Ukraine in partnership with the Association of Audiovisual Reporters (Armenia) and the Art Transparent Foundation (Poland) with financial support from the Creative Europe program, the International Renaissance Foundation, the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Ukrainian Cultural Foundation, the Embassy of the Kingdom of Netherlands, and Ministry of Culture, National Heritage and Sport of the Republic of Poland.