JUNE-OCTOBER'2015
CRIMEA UKRAINE :::TRACK:::
idea
From Crimea to Crimea — :::track:::. We still do not know, how long we have to travel, but we will come back. This project includes visual imprints-reminders in spaces of our cities that have to keep common attention on the Crimean question and maintain a constant connection between mainland Ukraine and Crimea. In the current conditions of pressure in Crimea and certain disregard of the Crimean question in mainland Ukraine, the language of art remains probably to be the only possibility to communicate.
The:::track::: is initiated by ArtPole Agency. Our activity in Crimea had started from the festival Skhidni Vorota.ArtPole Krym (Easten Gate. ArtPole Crimea) in October’2011 in Bakhchysaray. Then, we invited guests from all over Ukraine for a walk in the city-garden among mosques, teahouses, and fountains to learn about traditional Crimean Tatar crafts and music of different epochs and nations played on the stage near the Eastern Gate of Chufut-Kale. Before the annexation in March’2014 we could not stay aside and went to Crimea in order to understand what was going on and support our friends. We worked there as independent journalists. Olia Mykhailiuk wrote the series of articles about Crimea for “Ukrainska Pravda. Zhyttia” (Ukrainian Truth.Life) web-portal. She keeps writing them now as well. In September’2014, when we had no possibility to organize any event in Crimea any more, we held a series of debates, open lectures, and film screenings ABOUT CRIMEA in Odesa. After long and difficult discussions, Olia Mykhailiuk accidentally heard the conversation about traditional decorative patterns between the artists from Hutsul region and Crimea, and it became clear — there is something bigger and stronger than today’s political reality — :::track::: led us out of a deadlock. The Crimean Tatars’ decorative patterns by a famous ceramist Rustem Skibin became the starting point of the project. On this basis, Olia Mykhailiuk developed an artistic conception that provides involvement of different authors and an individual design for each of the selected cities. As the implementation of this idea required quite material paints and tools, ArtPole organized a crowd founding campaign, and the project found its active supporters.
first steps
Kyiv became the first city. A Polish street artist Artur Wabik worked there. He made one of his first works in Crimea, and then he visited Ukraine several times, in particular Luhansk. Nowadays, like the majority of us, he cannot go to these territories. He thinks that we should carry on and create our own world — in order to return there one day. Artur used Rustem’s decorative patterns with architecture motives connecting a Crimean tradition and trends of a modern city. Now, under the bridge on Holosiivskyi Prospect where transport is moving, there is :::track:::that turns to the forest and gives us the opportunity to enjoy the silence and trees, to recall some things and to dream.
In Vinnytsia, Olia Mykhailiuk proposed to combine traditional decorative patterns with the quotations from Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi’s stories about Crimea. The author defined the genre of these works as a sketch and an aquarelle. More than one hundred years have passed since Kotsiubynskyi had wrote his Crimean series, but the questions he raised — religious, artistic, worldview — became even more relevant. Artists from Vinnytsia supported the idea. The Topical Creativity Laboratory proposed the place for its implementation — the Library №1 situated right in front of the writer’s museum, and it joined in full capacity. The author’s decorative patterns by Rustem Skibin and Yulia Hushul from Vinnytsia intertwined with the texts in Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar designed by Olia Mykhailiuk. The artists hope that multi-language and multi-space writing and decorative patterns will become a successful artistic experiment and the words will blossom, and local people will be able to travel with :::track::: to the mysterious worlds from the texts of favourite writer.
Also, :::track::: turned to Berdiansk — the mural on the wall of the Isaak Brodskyi Art Museum was made by an artist Andrii Hurenko from Kyiv. He used Rustem Skibin’s decorative patterns as the elements of magical landscape.
next
In spring, ArtPole plans to continue :::track::: — to finish the painting in Vinnytsia and to go to Chernivtsi. It is assumed that the group of artists will work there: Andrii Khir, Yarema Stetsyk, as well as permanent members of the project — Rustem Skibin and Olia Mykhailiuk. It won’t be just one object. However, we will not reveal the secrets before the beginning. :::track::: becomes more mysterious, complicated, and interesting. The next cities of :::track::: will be Lviv and Warsaw. Afterwards, there will be Prague, Munich, Paris, Barcelona, and Lisbon, and then – the ocean! In all these cities there are people concerned about Crimea. In 2011, a documentary filmmaker from Paris Vincent Moon made a film about the traditional music of different peoples of the Crimean peninsula. The film was presented in the Odesa Film Festival. In January’2015, ArtPole plans to make an open screening in Kyiv. While it is impossible to work open air, we will write, talk, watch and think about our next steps. In spring, we will continue :::track::: further and tell the world about Crimea in order to return.
Project partners: Polish Institute in Kyiv, The platform of social innovations Bigggg Idea, the Regional Development Centre “Top-Kaya”, and NGO “The Topical Creativity Laboratory”.