How River Roars – Introduction

Ukraine’s resistance against Russia’s war of aggression and full-scale invasion of 2022 has brought together people from around the world in the fight for freedom and against flagrant violations of human rights and international law. It has also forced many Ukrainian citizens, including a significant number of artists, to relocate around the world and to assume the new role of cultural ambassadors of the country at war. Despite the challenges of historical circumstances, the exhibition showcases the resilience of civil society and shared values, providing an opportunity to see how collective and individual identities are being shaped. The younger generation of Ukrainian artists is playing a vital role in this transformation, challenging and rewriting narratives,  spreading the word and uniting diverse voices to imagine the coming return of militarily seized territories and the process of reintegration.

1 – Oleksandra Pogrebnyak, Antoni Burzyński, What River Roars About: A curatorial tour of the exhibition 

2 – Dmytro Chepurnyi, Landscape after Deoccupation: On Imagined Possibilities of Returning to Luhansk

3 – Kateryna Aliinyk, Who Else Eats Life with Spoons? 

4 – Dasha Chechushkova, Collecting Contemporary Folklore

These materials are published as an afterwords for the Jak płynie rwąco / How River Roars / Як реве ревучий exhibition, presented at Krupa Art Foundation in Wrocław in 2023, and are made possible with support from the Mieroszewski Centre.