The Ukrainian Institute and the OK Projects curatorial association presented an online exhibition in the game format “The Fantastic Adventure through Art History of Ukraine”.
Project is a part of the Ukrainian Institute’s #Ukraine Everywhere programme for presenting Ukraine`s visual culture online.
The game The Fantastic Adventure through Art History of Ukraine (in Ukrainian and English) shows you what happened on the territory of Ukraine between 1920 and 2020, and you can choose how to react to these historical events through your works. The player is an artist who transforms social phenomena and political events into works of art.
“The recent history of Ukrainian art is not set in stone, it is an ongoing process, and it is all the more interesting to be a participant in it. This is what the game “The Fantastic Adventure through Art History of Ukraine” offers: an adventure with many scenarios of unfolding events that we choose ourselves. The game tells one hundred years story where Ukrainian art is not only formed as an original phenomenon under the influence of internal social and political contexts, but also remains an integral part of European and world cultural processes. Therefore, the project will be interesting to both international and Ukrainian audiences.” — says Oleksandr Vynogradov, Head of Visual Art at the Ukrainian Institute.
The curatorial selection of Ukrainian artists represented in the game is based on thematic and historical principles. Over the past 100 years, selected Ukrainian artists have responded to social processes or constructed alternative, fantastic, speculative realities to avoid these processes. The online exhibition presents works by 20 Ukrainian artists, including Mykhailo Boychuk, Oleksandra Exter, Serhiy Hryhoriev, Alla Horska, Mykola Karabinovych, and Fedir Tetyanych (Fripulya).
“It was important for us to encourage both the general public and the professional audience while creating the game. Therefore, there are several layers in the project “The Fantastic Adventure through Art History of Ukraine”: a user unfamiliar with Ukrainian art needs to play a game several times to find all the artists; art community can critically examine the relations between artists and the non-inclusion of some people relevant to the context, as well as those interested in historical processes can find new “Easter eggs” in the illustrations, playing the game each time.” — project curators Ksenia Malykh and Valeria Schiller note.
This game is not an exhaustive or comprehensive guide into Ukrainian art between 1920 and 2020. There are many important art phenomena outside those covered in the game. Still, there are many important artistic phenomena that are worth exploring.
Project was developed by curatorial association OK projects, Bilesuhe Agency and Photinus Studio. Projects Curators — Ksenia Malykh, Valeria Schiller, illustrator — Daniil Revkovsky. The Fantastic Adventure through Art History of Ukraine is part of the Ukrainian Institute’s #Ukraine Everywhere programme for presenting Ukraine’s visual culture online.