Inaugural New York truthful for Ukrainian artists needs to point out that the nation is ‘an answer, not an issue’

Greater than 100 artists, manufacturers and corporations from Ukraine have arrange store within the Skylight at Essex Crossing on New York Metropolis’s Decrease East Aspect for the inaugural I Am U Are Ukrainian Creators Truthful (till 26 March). Co-founded by Anna Pagava, the chief government of the Los Angeles-based public relations company Gogola, and Kristina Skripka, a hospitality knowledgeable, the occasion goals to point out that Ukrainian “tradition, expertise, artwork and design have at all times been progressive and various”, the organisers say, whereas convincing those who the nation is “not an issue however an answer”.

The organisers additionally need to ship a message of defiance, claiming that “the struggle has given much more agility and resilience to Ukrainian inventive expertise that the world can be taught and profit from”.

Masha Reva and Ivan Grabko, a painter couple based mostly in Kyiv who fled the town following Russia’s invasion, are the truthful’s inventive administrators. They’ve organised two exhibitions in collaboration with the Ukrainian Museum of New York. Reva deliberate a present of Ukrainian photographers whose work portrays “a poetic, robust, and collective portrait of younger Ukraine”, and Grabko requested a number of artists to create works in response to the immediate, “How are you?”

“The artists are additionally asking the viewer the identical query,” Grabko tells The Artwork Newspaper. “It’s a quite simple query requested by individuals after they meet, a dialog opener began by pals or individuals who don’t know one another. Usually it is unnecessary however typically it means way more than merely being well mannered.”

However behind the tender themes, the fact for the truthful’s contributors is sort of grim generally; after the occasion, the bulk will return to a war-ravaged nation with no finish to the preventing in sight. “Sadly, the struggle is an important factor occurring in Ukraine proper now, however persons are persevering with to reside their lives and do their work as they did earlier than,” Grabko says. “We need to present that the struggle is one thing we are going to win, our defenders usually are not preventing for struggle however for victory and life. Individuals must see that this battle shouldn’t be in useless.”

Offering alternatives for Ukraine’s inventive industries to community and forge ties with US businesspeople is a crucial side of I Am U Are. The truthful has partnered with United 24, an official fundraising platform launched by Ukrainian president Oleksandr Zelensky’s administration, and a number of the occasion’s income will go to humanitarian support in Ukraine.

“To be sincere, all of us wanted an enormous undertaking to concentrate on and mix our powers for an excellent trigger,” Reva says. “All elements of Ukrainian tradition are equally essential, from the rave scene and museum artefacts to tech startups and craft methods inherited from our ancestors. This variety makes Ukrainians who we’re.”

• I Am U Are Ukrainian Creators Truthful, till 26 March, Skylight at Essex Crossing, New York