Ukrainian mosaics and a digital cultural guide. The Ukrainian Institute’s exhibition stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair
The Ukrainian Institute will exhibit two multimedia projects at its stand at the world’s most important book fair, the Frankfurt Book Fair. The audiovisual project Discover Ukraine: Bits Destroyed about monumental art and the digital guide Insight.UA will offer guests an insight into the multilayered and vibrant Ukrainian culture, while also showing the destructive impact of war on art.
“As long as we cherish our homeland, we remain youshful in art.”
These are the words of Ukrainian artist Alla Horska, opening the stand.
Alla Horska’s artworks are brought to life in the Discover Ukraine: Bits Destroyed project which is an audiovisual exhibition of mosaics that explores the multilayered world of Ukrainian monumental art. The project features 56 mosaics from the 1960s and 1970s, including works by Alla Horska, Hryhorii Pryshedko, Halyna Zubchenko, Ada Rybachuk, Volodymyr Melnychenko, and many other Ukrainian artists. Over 25% of the mosaics were damaged or destroyed as a result of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The installation was created by the Ukrainian Institute and the Rock ‘n’ Light studio team based on documentary photographs by Yevhen Nikiforov.
“We want to illustrate the continuity of Ukrainian culture, encourage people to explore, watch, read and listen to Ukrainian cultural product. At the same time, we search for creative ways to tell our story and make people interested in contemporary Ukrainian culture,” says Ani Kazaryan, Head of the Cross-Sectoral Programmes Department at the Ukrainian Institute.
Insight.UA is a digital guide to Ukrainian culture in English, created by the Ukrainian Institute for a worldwide audience, covering music, literature, theatre, cinema, visual arts, Crimea, and analytical research. The digital guide is designed to help you discover Ukrainian culture through various formats – selections of Ukrainian films, exhibitions, and books as well as listening to playlists or watching online courses.
The stand features a curated selection of books that delve into the nuances of Ukrainian culture and visitors will be able to take posters with Alla Horska’s mosaic Boryviter and a photo Green Water by Igor Chursin, a representative of the Kharkiv School of Photography.
The exhibition stand is located at booth number 4.1/H36 at THE ARTS+ platform, which serves as a meeting place for professionals from the publishing and creative industries at the Frankfurt Book Fair. The Ukrainian Institute’s stand was designed in collaboration with PLUR architectural studio, Spiilka design bureau and art director Nastia Zherebetska.
In addition to the Ukrainian Institute’s stand, the fair will feature a joint national stand of Ukraine, presented by the Ukrainian Book Institute, Goethe-Institut in Ukraine, Mystetskyi Arsenal and the Ukrainian Institute. The stand will have its own stage where events and discussions will take place daily (full programme).
Some of the events organised jointly with the Ukrainian Institute:
18 October
- 15.00 –16.00 The Ukrainian question and the Ukrainian answer
Participants: Iryna Tsilyk (Ukrainian filmmaker and writer), Oleksandr Mykhed
(Writer, curator of arts), Kateryna Mikhalitsyna (writer, editor and a translator)
Moderator: Kateryna Rietz-Rakul (Head of Ukrainian Institute in Berlin)
Organizers: Goethe-Institut, Mystetskyi Arsenal, Ukrainian Institute
- 17.00 – 18.00 Literature from Ukraine: State of War
Participants: Iryna Tsilyk (Ukrainian filmmaker and writer),
Oleksandr Mykhed (Writer, curator of arts)
Moderator: Evgenia Lopata (Kulturträgerin, Meridian Czernowitz)
Event language: German and Ukrainian
Organizers: Meridian Czernowitz, Goethe-Institut, Ukrainian Institute