Dymchuk Gallery presents the exhibition ‘Against Oblivion’, which includes projects by Ukrainian artists Katya Buchatska, Inga Levi, and Natalia Lisova. The project collects the authors’ ideas about the process of memorialization in Ukraine: the installation of monuments that honor the history and its heroes, rethinking existing monuments, and the problems of inclusion. The exhibition features graphic works, videos, and objects.
The war has led to a range of realizations in Ukrainian society about the existing problems of preserving the memory of the events of the present and the past and reflections on how we want to see the future.
In the project ‘Fixing’, Inga Levi offers her critical view of the initiative to honor the memory of students and graduates of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute who fought and continue to fight against the Russian aggressor. In the summer of 2023, KPI initiated the creation of a memorial in the form of a mural on the walls of a brutalist building next to a new, non-inclusive park, demonstrating a lack of understanding of the value of architectural heritage and a lack of real attention to the problems of wounded soldiers and people with disabilities. The alternative project offers care instead of pompous commemoration: a utilitarian rather than monumental form. This work aims to rethink a moment in history when society faces previously underestimated issues of inclusiveness and memorialization.
The work was created as a master’s thesis project at the Gdańsk Academy of Arts and curated by Grzegorz Klaman.
In Katya Buchatska’s video, the author stands on the edge of a crater in the destroyed village of Moshchun in the Kyiv region and wonders what future memorials to the Russian-Ukrainian war might look like. The video ‘This World is Recording’ presents her artistic approach to commemorative tools using landscapes and plants.
The work was created as part of the laboratory of artistic research on the experiences of war ‘Land of Return, Land of Care’ by memory culture platform ‘Past/ Future/ Art’ in partnership with the NGO ‘Slushni Rechy’, the SoundCamp art cooperative, and the Acoustic Commons project. Curated by: Natalka Revko, Oksana Dovgopolova, Kateryna Semeniuk.
In her project ‘Alley of Glory – Alley of Memory’, Natalia Lisova turned to rethinking an existing monument, the Alley of Glory in Odesa. The memorial complex in honor of the fallen Odesa defenders during World War II is in Taras Shevchenko Central Park. The Alley features the stele with bas-reliefs dedicated to different moments in the history of Odesa. These include the city’s defense during the Crimean War in April 1854, the 1905 uprising on the battleship Potemkin, the January 1918 armed uprising, and the Hryhoriv landing in 1941. The memorial complex still contains multiple burials of participants in the defense of Odesa.
The artist proposes to rename the Alley of Glory into the Alley of Memory and rebury the fallen soldiers; instead of the Soviet stele, build a small fountain: a granite gray gully that releases a stream of tears from top to bottom, slowly flowing through the entire Alley; rethink the Soviet pathos of tragic events and preserve the memory of Odesa residents who gave their lives to protect the city.
The project was born out within the framework of the project ‘Laboratory of Memorialization Practices’ initiated within the framework of the program ‘Culture of Memory in Postwar Ukraine’ by the Museum of Modern Art and the Memory Culture Platform ‘Past/ Future/ Art’ with the support of the Partnership for Ukraine’s Resilience (PfRU) fund, funded by the governments of the United Kingdom, Estonia, Canada, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom. Curators: Olha Balashova, Oksana Dovhopolova, Kateryna Semeniuk, and Yuliia Hnat.
About authors:
Katya Buchatska was born in 1987 in Kyiv, where she works and lives. She studied Graphic Techniques and Illustration at the Institute of NTUU KPI, Kyiv, Ukraine (2003-2007); Fine Art at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Art de Dijon, Dijon, France (2008), and Monumental Painting with Professor Mykola Storozhenko at the National Academy of Fine Art and Architecture, Kyiv, Ukraine (2008-2015). She collaborates with the preservation group for the legacy of the Hutsul naïve artist Paraska Plytka-Horytsvit. Since 2016, Katya Buchatska has worked with people with autism spectrum disorders in the art studio ‘Workshop of Possibilities’. In 2024, she presented the ‘Best Wishes’ project in the Ukrainian Pavilion at the 60th International Venice Biennale in collaboration with 15 neurodivergent artists.
Inga Levi was born and based in Kyiv, Ukraine. Studied book illustration at Kyiv Polytechnical University (NTUU KPI) on the Publishing faculty and graduated in 2011. In 2021, she graduated Contemporary Art at Kyiv Academy of Media Arts, and in 2024 – Intermedia faculty of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, Poland (master’s degree). In 2021 — curator of the restoration of Kyiv Central Bus Station mosaics (1960-61, authored by A. Rybachuk and V. Melnychenko). In 2018-2019 — mosaicist and a representative of the author V. Melnichenko on the artistic part of the restoration of the fountain at the Kyiv Palace of Children and Youth ‘Stars and Constellations’ (1963-65, authored by A. Rybachuk and V. Melnychenko).
Natalia Lisova was born in Lytin, Vinnytsia region. In 2011, she graduated from the Vinnytsia Faculty of the Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts, majoring in Environmental Design. In 2018, a GaudePolonia scholarship holder from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of Poland, curator Janusz Baldyga (Poznan, Poland). In 2019, she graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture, majoring in Theory and History of Art (Kyiv). In 2021, she was co-curator of the MYTHOGENESIS International Landscape Art Festival (Vinnytsia). From 2021, PhD candidate, NAOMA (Kyiv). She lives and works in Kyiv.