PPV #41: Ukrainian Women Artists at War

The Russian war in Ukraine directly affects culture by destroying museums and heritage. How does contemporary art resist and reflect such cruelty? What happens to contemporary Ukrainian art when it is caught up in war, and when it experiences constant, systematic trauma?

In her report, Kateryna Iakovlenko will talk about a woman's view of war: how to be a woman artist, an artist and a mother, an artist engaged in volunteering? What other roles did the war prepare for women artists, and how did these women artists cope with these roles?

Kateryna Iakovlenko is a Digital Editor-in-Chief of PBC: Suspilne Culture; Ukrainian contemporary art researcher, curator, and writer. Among her publications is the book Why There Are Great Women Artists in Ukrainian Art (2019), a special issue Euphoria and Fatigue: Ukrainian Art and Society after 2014. Among her curatorial exhibitions are I dreamed of beasts (Labirynt Gallery, 2022-2023, with Halyna Hleba), Everyone is afraid of the baker, and I thank you (apartment exhibition, Irpin, 2022) and Our Years, Our Words, Our Losses, Our Searches, Our Us (Jam Factory, Lviv, 2023, with Natalia Matsenko and Borys Filonenko). She is also a co-curator of the Secondary Archive project (2022) and Secondary Archive project: Women Artists at War (2024).

Perverting the Power Vertical (PPV) is an event platform and seminar series based at the UCL SSEES.