Artist collectives and cultural networks for the reconstruction of Ukraine

This talk addresses the role of art communities and self-organization within the context of a protracted war in Ukraine. How have people in the field of culture restructured their activities into activism and volunteer work, and how these grassroot organisations make up the decentralized scheme of mutual aid and support? What modes of operation do cultural institutions and art collectives employ when displaced to the US, EU, and the UK, and how do they operate in Ukraine in the aftermath of military occupation? What forms of solidarity can play a role in sustaining existing and new cultural initiatives in Ukraine and internationally?

About the speaker

Daša Anosova (UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies)
Daša is a researcher and cultural worker from Kyiv, Ukraine. She is the 2020/2021 Chevening cohort alumna; graduated from King’s College London with an MA in Education in the Arts and Cultural Settings. She developed a number of art and cultural projects as a part of self-organised Ukrainian art collectives and continuously collaborated with a Ukrainian press IST publishing as an editor and translator. She’s been teaching at the Kyiv Academy of Media Arts since 2019 and at the British Council Ukraine in 2016-2019. She is a PhD student at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies. Her current research is focused on the operational strategies and aesthetic-political vocabulary developed by Ukrainian art and cultural initiatives.

Image: The Theatre of Hopes and Expectation construction work, Dusseldorf, July 2022. Photo by Daša Anosova