Olena Kasperovych is an art-manager, curator of the International Art Residency Programme at the Yermilov Centre, the first centre of contemporary art in Kharkiv.
As part of the Culture Bridges mobility programme, Olena visited Slovenia in April 2019 to present the concept of her joint project with the BridA art collective. In September of the same year, Slovenian artists came to Kharkiv and the Plantportation project opened in the courtyard at the Yermilov Centre within parallel programme of the II Biennale of Young Art. Olena talks about the rapid development of the project, its successful launch in Ukraine and its publicity in Slovenia as well as the invitation to curate the visual part of the most important Slovenian contemporary art festival Pixxelpoint.
Art collective BridA
I began my acquaintanceship with Tom Kerševan, Sendi Mango and Jurij Pavlica from the BridA art collective and emerging generation of Slovenian artists, in April 2017 during a study tour of Slovenia, initiated by the Culture & Creativity, an EU-Eastern Partnership Programme. We travelled through several cities and during the last night in the small town of Šempas, which is near the Italian border, I got to know the trio from BridA and visited their creative workshop.
We kept in touch over a year, always looking for opportunities to invite artists to Ukraine. We saw then that a more realistic approach would be a mobility for me to Slovenia. At that point, I already had the idea of a plant migration project and I suggested the concept to the group. They liked it and we agreed that I present it to the professional community and the public in Šempas. Another object of the trip was to conduct research as a curator and have personal interactions with area colleagues in order to finalize the concept and start work on the project in collaboration with BridA.
Mobility in Slovenia
This mobility lasted three weeks (20 days) and was integrated into the BridA Arts Group R.o.R. residency programme in Šempas. On 14 April, we held a 'Tea Party' meeting - Presentation of our common project with BridA at their studio for the local art community, including artists, curators, journalists, and cultural managers. I got a lot of useful and specific questions and feedback from arts professionals. I shared my plans and conducted my "Plant Adoption" (both adoption and adaptation) action. I had brought some plants from Ukraine to Slovenia which my friends and artists in Kharkiv had given me, notably Natalia Ivanova, director of the Yermilov Centre. Each plant came with its own history from its Ukrainian donor (where it grew, why important, etc.), which was written on a notecard together with scientific data about its origin and type. Guests at the event had the opportunity to choose a plant and take it home with them. Quite often people were drawn to the plant they chose because of its history or because of the commonness of the species grown in nearly every garden—strawberries, chamomile, currants, etc. We recorded the contact information of those who took plants and got them to sign a pledge to care for the plant and then we took a photo of them with their plant, adding some real informal formality to the exchange. I provided everyone with my address so they could report on the faith of their "adoptee".
On 19 April, we had another presentation continuing the action at the Carinarnica Cultural Centre in Nova Gorica. There, we invited everyone to bring their children. Carinarnica, translated from Slovenian, means "customs". Fitting, with its building located directly on the border of Slovenia and Italy. You come in the door from one country and leave through another door into another country. The border now is merely a formality, of course, but the checkpoint booth is still there, and this was converted into a cultural centre which often hosts presentations and workshops. This point was quite significant for the project, referring as it does to the complex history of the city and the daily movement of residents across the border. This region was the subject of a territorial dispute between Italy and Yugoslavia after World War II. With the establishment of new borders between the countries in 1947, the old town passed into Italian possession (now it's called Gorizia), and Nova Gorica was built on the Yugoslav side.
Slovenia is a small country territorially when compared with Ukraine. However, the concentration of cultural institutions, hubs, galleries and museums is noticeably higher. I was impressed by the creative hubs: how they were created, how they function, how people from different sectors unite, and stimulate the development of interdisciplinary collaborations. Slovenians also perceive that their thought processes don't differ that much from that of Ukrainian. Local residents noted that as recently as 10-15 years ago they could not have imagined this kind of development opportunity for cultural projects as it now exists. They described how they did it and what obstacles they encountered on the way. After hearing these stories, you see that rapid development is possible and that you can do it, too.
In Ljubljana, I liked Poligon, a private creative centre and the first and largest coworking-space in Slovenia. It is housed in a former tobacco factory, which ceased operations in the early 2000's and occupies more than a thousand square metres. It was created to empower self-employed professionals working in the field of creative economics, social entrepreneurship and culture. Poligon offers internship programmes, which regularly attract foreign students. There is also a bar, library, gallery space, and room for presentations, lectures and other cultural events at the space.
The Independent Academy of Arts, located in a historic building in the town of Vipavas on the bank of the Vipava River, and not far from Nova Gorica, also has a dynamic media department under the guidance of Professor Peter Purg. Today, the Academy offers BA and Master programmes in photography, animation, video and new media. Students are constantly travelling, implementing projects that host successful sector players, who hold workshops and condensed original courses.
For me, a huge step in my professional development was cooperating with the BridA group. They are one of the most sought-after Slovenian artistic unions worldwide, the home of the creators of several internationally recognized projects. The trio explores modern society, employing art, science and modern technology. They interrogate a subject as artists, attempting to understand what role technology might play in the work. Looking at how much of an action is a creative function and to what degree it can be automated, also examining the question of if a work is a collective effort, how we can talk about author contribution.
My focus shifted during the project and I began to be interested in art associated with technology and experimentation. When Ii was in Ljubljana I met with Irena Pivka, curator of the Steklenik sound, bioacoustics and art gallery. This is a kind of conservatory along the lines of a botanical garden where artists organise exhibits of plants, space and acoustics—there are a lot of sound works done there. This left a strong emotional impression and I wanted to grasp how it worked, that is, how technology is not just a tool to help express an idea, but how it can be combined organically in an art project. Sadly, there isn't much of this going on in Ukraine and this inspired me to create an interdisciplinary project combining the arts and sciences here and at home, and bring artists working at Steklenik to Ukraine.
BridA in Kharkiv and PLANTPORTATION project
It was during my mobility with BridA that the idea on plant migration realised visually arose. The Honourable Council of Slovenia helped with the funding and artists started on the work. Busy with that, we also thought about where it would be best to exhibit the project and settled on Kharkiv. Then Sendi Mango got a Culture Bridges grant and their entire arts team travelled to Kharkiv.
We worked independently and planned to hold a presentation in the autumn, but we had a conflict with the timeframe of the II Biennale of Young Art, so we offered the curators the suggestion of incorporating this project into a parallel programme. Conceptually everything fit and in September we opened an interactive multimedia installation in the courtyard at the Yermilov Centre.
Our project is a reconsideration of the natural history of Europe, in particular, the migration of plants. We're asking questions about local and foreign, adaptation, movement and migration. We also focus on how space is perceived in terms of real and virtual coexistence: it is not difficult for humans to move, but for plants it's only possible under certain metamorphic conditions. The project raises the possibility of attracting plants into our virtual life, even if their roots are attached to the earth, artists are thinking about the potential for the televised, visual presence of plants and the manner of caring for them remotely.
Sendi Mango, BridA, grantee of the sixth call of the Culture Bridges programme
Ми до цього не були в Україні. Звісно ми знали про таку країну і де вона географічно розташована, але більшість інформацію про складну ситуацію ми дізнавались з новин. А власний досвід подорожі це абсолютно інша річ. Ми були здивовані, що в Харкові повно молоді на вулицях. Також ми з'ясували, що через спільне слов'янське походження, ми непогано розуміємо українську. Взагалі українська дуже схожа на шемпаський діалект словенської. І можливо нам просто пощастило, але ми миттєво знаходили контакт з людьми. Ми зустрічались з кураторами, художниками, арт-менеджерами, а також просто місцевими жителями. Ми також провели презентацію та мали зустріч зі студентами, де обговорювали майбутнє мистецьких практик і їхнє бачення та ідеї.
The Bienniale curators organised a private viewing of all the expositions on the day before the official opening, after the artists had completed their installations. It was very cool to have this chance to get a comprehensive overview of the diversity of the Ukrainian art scene and get an insider's view of how a contemporary art exhibition was developed. Most of the work made comparative analyses of past, present and future. For example, one artist explored the stereotypical ideal towns built during the Soviet period and what they look like now. That kind of journey opens new horizon for creativity; they give you a chance to see how artists in another country tackle a common topic but from a completely different perspective, one informed by their personal cultural, social and political environment. This approach gets incorporated in your own work after that, albeit in fragmentary fashion.
Під час мобільності Олени у Словенії ми познайомили її з директоркою Культурного дому в Новій Гориці Паулою Ярц. Після нашої подорожі до Харкова ми багато писали про проект PLANTPORTATION у соціальних мережах, викладали фото з бієнале. ЗМІ зацікавились і почали виходити матеріали у пресі, на радіо, онлайн. Ми також розповіли про наш досвід Паулі, поділилися з нею планами наступної колаборації і сподівались, що Культурний дім як інституція зможуть якось долучитися і допомогти нам. Через декілька місяців нас запросили на зустріч і запропонували Олені кураторство візуальної частини "Pixxelpoint". Це найважливіший фестиваль сучасного мистецтва у Словенії, який також покриває частину Італії. Займаючись міжнародними проектами ми часто говоримо про побудову лінків та мостів між країнами, і, на нашу думку, це вже дуже солідний міст. Я впевнена, що Олена презентує цікавих українських художників і відбудеться міжкультурний діалог з місцевими митцями. Це перша велика східно-європейська колаборація і справжній успіх.
Юрій Павліца, учасник BridA
Ми працювали з рослинами і методами їхньої транспортації і звернули увагу, що на бієнале деякі художники досліджувати сади в регіонах, де зараз продовжується війна. Переселенці з цих міст не змогли забрати з собою свої сади і сумують за ними. І в цьому аспекті наш проект цікавий саме тим, що дозволяє перенести рослини з однієї місцевості в іншу.
PLANTPORTATION продовжує та розвиває концепцію «Міграції рослин», яку я презентувала в Словенії, і полягає у створенні «між-простору», де люди можуть тимчасово присвоїти собі ідентичність рослини. Інсталяція складається з проекції на стіну, поряд із місцевими рослинами і створює відчуття дзеркала, хоча насправді це фото місця, на якому ви стоїте. Зображення змінюється, реагуючи на рух глядача і на екрані з'являються рослини з Шемпасу, створюючи ту саму можливість «ідентифікації» з ними. Проект отримав багато хороших відгуків від професійної спільноти та від відвідувачів.
Pixxelpoint festival and continuation of cooperation
After a bit, some representatives from Nova Gorica, co-organizers of the Pixxelpoint festival, contacted me. We met at our 'tea party' and then we talked with the afterwards. They had read about our project at the Biennale which had been covered by Slovenian media. They offered me the chance to provide the visual concept for their festival. They liked what I did and invited me to be the foreign curator for the 21st Pixxelpoint festival set for November 2020. Now I have to put my concept to work in some project exhibits and put together a list of artists. I'll go to Slovenia again this spring for a working meeting. Festival rules dictate a certain level of participation from Slovenian artists and I plan to meet these people face to face. BridA will also have a project at the festival.
Photo credits: BridA, Olena Kasperovych, Yermilov centre
