Mykolaiv ART Week started without visitors
As part of the festival of contemporary art Mykolaiv ART Week, the CONNECT exhibition was presented at the art center *8 PRICHAL. Due to quarantine restrictions, the event was held without visitors.
– The idea of the project arose in early 2020, before the epidemic started around the world, before it reached Ukraine. We hoped that the fourth festival of actual art in Mykolaiv will take place in October, 2020. We have already started the creative stage of the festival, but we were forced to postpone it, believing that everything will be fine in April. But we have what we have. Unfortunately, now visitors will not be able to see the exhibition live. We hope that the situation will change in May, – says Dmytro Larchenko, curator of the exhibition.
The open call of the main exhibition received 161 applications from 136 participants from 34 cities in Ukraine, Northern Macedonia, China, Germany, Great Britain, Poland, Italy and Russia.
The exhibition includes works by 52 authors in various genres: photography, graphics and painting, collage, animation, video art, performance, sculpture, installation and VR. Most of them are created during lockdown and reflect the topic of human connections during distancing and self-isolation at home.– Everything was planned, but there was a lockdown. Everything was endured. The idea also changed a bit – we focused more on how this year was for the artists. In fact, most of the work is very relevant. We had 161 applications. As for the regional festival, it is very high result, – says Daria Frych-Alchina, co-organizer of the festival.
– Despite the quarantine restrictions, we can`t forget about daily life. About love, about human relationships and the world we are in. Thanks to the sublimation of artistic thoughts into works, we can qualitatively exchange ideas, share our experiences and pass on our creative inspiration to each other, – says Mykola Kapatsyna, the founder of the art space *8 PRICHAL.
It is no coincidence that the primary idea of the art exhibition was also transformed in the conditions of pandemic reality. The topic of CONNECT (“connection”) initially covered the transformation of human communication in the context of rapid urbanization and digitalization of virtually every aspect of life. The pandemic forced organizers to shift the focus to the perception of social distancing and the loss of the usual means of communication between people and between countries.
– In the beginning, when we created the idea of the festival, there was a slightly different meaning. We wanted to tell more to Mykolaiv citizens about the connection between different cultures, different countries of the world, the connection in the sense sphere between different people. Unfortunately, because of Covid-19, when we announced the open call, we decided that it would be more appropriate to raise the issue of human relations not only between countries, but also within one city, one family. Because last year we had to spend a lot of time either alone or with our relatives and colleagues. And this topic is painful for most people. All the works presented at the exhibition (which are now 52 authors from 8 countries) are a reflection on the events of 2020. Some works were created in early 2021 – in January and February, – says Dmytro.
The exhibition will last until May 16. The organizers hope that Mykolaiv will leave the red quarantine zone and that the restrictions on holding mass events will be eased accordingly. In this case, the exhibition will be available for live viewing.