5 May 2023
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Location:
Mimosa House
47 Theobalds Rd
London
WC1X 8SP
Please join the conversation with curator Alexandra Tryanova on art histories from the Ukrainian South. Alexandra draws a speculative map of the region departing from artistic practices of different historical periods tied with the locality attempting to mark a unique northern Black Sea identity and matters that formed it.
The conversation will explore horizontal practices and community building, psychogeography, escapism, attitude to the body, music, and politics bridging Ukrainian South and Mediterranean culture.
Image: Stas Volyazlovsky “An non Spiritus Existunt?”, mid-2000, textile, ball-pen.
Registration is free but essential.
Speaker:
Alexandra Tryanova
Alexandra is an independent curator and researcher, a current fellow of the Jester (Genk, Belgium), and a member of the Culture Commons Quest Office at the Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (Antwerp University). She graduated from the Kask Curatorial Studies course in 2022 and holds an MA in Cultural studies and Law. In her research and practice, Alexandra focuses on artistic practices connected with recreation, gender, collective memory, and Eastern European avant-gardes. Recent projects and exhibitions: Just like Arcadia, Kunsthal Extra City, Antwerp (2022); Series of online talks Conflict Zones at Jester, Genk (2022); Velniai, Klaipeda Cultural Communication Centre, Klaipeda (2021). Recent publications: Passivity: Between Resignation and Pacifism (co-edited with Pascal Gielen), 2023, Valiz, Amsterdam. Previously Alexandra held the position of curator at the Museum of Odesa Modern Art and PinchukArtCentre (Kyiv). Since 2017, She runs an independent non-production residency Kunsthalle Lustdorf based on temporary independent artistic and curatorial associations for open practices and technologies in the area of the Green Valley in the suburbs of Odesa. Lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium.
This talk is a part of the public programme contextualising the exhibition I AM NOT HERE TO BE STRONGER THAN YOU co-curated by Daša Anosova and Alexandra Tryanova at Mimosa House in London. The show is the first major presentation of works by Alyona Tokovenko and AntiGonna - contemporary Ukrainian artists working with transgressive practices, radical intimacy, and personal traumatic memories.
In the exhibition, autobiographical narratives are manifested through the acts of (auto)eroticism, transgression and pornographic imagery incorporating painting, sculpture, installation, video, and viscerally embodied live art. Hurt and injured bodies are present in the gallery space in the form of moving image and morphing canvases, while pain, as a visual language, and a key theme of the artists’ works, addresses the politics of the moment.
The talk will take place in the exhibition space where the participants will have an opportunity to learn more about both artists' artistic practices. Learn more about the show here.
In partnership with FRINGE: UCL's Centre for the Study of Social and Cultural Complexity.