Places We Love: Art and the Ukrainian East features the work of four contemporary Ukrainian artists: Oleksandr Kuchynskyi, Masha Pronina, Darya Tsymbalyuk, and Viktor ‘Corwic’ Zasypkin. Ranging from photography to montage to painting, these works provide insights into industrial heritage, pre-war cityscapes, the violence of military incursions, and the multiple lives and loves of the Donbas region. Donbas (Donetsk Coal Basin) is an industrial region in the east of Ukraine, which since 2014 has been partially occupied by Russia, and where war has been ongoing for eight years. Places featured in this exhibition include Mariupol, Sieverodonetsk, and Donetsk, now sadly familiar to international audiences because of Russian atrocities.
Artworks will be on display in The Garden Bothy and The Pergola at the St Andrews Botanic Garden. The exhibition will be accompanied by a weekend print sale, with all proceeds going to Ukrainian artists.
The exhibition opening will run from 15:00 – 17:00 on Saturday 18th June 2022, all are welcome to come by at any time! Please note that access to the exhibition is included with standard admission to the St Andrews Botanic Garden (students enter for free). Sign up here via Eventbrite.
Places We Love has been organised by the Centre for Contemporary Art in collaboration with the Centre for Russian, Soviet, Central and East European Studies and the Centre for Art and Politics at the University of St Andrews, and kindly hosted by the St Andrews Botanic Garden. The exhibition is co-organised by Kate Cowcher, Victoria Donovan, Catherine Spencer, and Darya Tsymbalyuk.
Places We Love developed from the book Limits of Collaboration: Art, Ethics and Donbas (Kyiv: Rosa Luxembourg Stiftung, 2022), written by Victoria Donovan and Darya Tsymbalyuk with Dmytro Chempurnyi, Viktor ‘Corwic’ Zasypkin, Oleksandr Kuchynskyi and Katerina Siryk.