HOME: Ukrainian photography, UK words
30th November 2024 - 25th January 2025
Contemporary Ukrainian photography comes to the Turnpike Gallery in an exhibition of Ukrainian artists who offer distinct ways of seeing and thinking about 'home'. Curators Max Gorbatskyi and Viktoria Bavykina showcase a breadth of perspectives, with works that explore identity, landscape, experimental art, folk and popular culture. Presented by Open Eye Gallery, the exhibition has toured in Liverpool, Salford, Leeds, Rochdale and Edinburgh, with a final display at UK Parliament planned for March 2025.
Underlying the selection of work is the question ‘what does home mean when your country is threatened by invasion?’
Max (Curator at Open Eye Gallery) and Viktoria (art critic and former visual arts curator at Grynyov Art Collection in Kyiv) have selected images which range from specially commissioned works in which artists photographed their home in 2023, to series of documentary works that comment on poignant points in Ukraine’s recent history - such as the annexing of Crimea - as well as insightful responses to the full-scale invasion. Other works look at identity, landscape, experimental art, folk or popular culture.
Originally commissioned to coincide with Eurovision as part of EuroFestival in Liverpool, the exhibition also includes three poems from UK writers. The exhibition invites audiences to build thematic connections between individual artists projects and experience a breadth of contemporary Ukrainian photography and visual culture.