Audiovisual show "Discover Ukraine: Bit by Bit"
The audiovisual show “Discover Ukraine: Bit by Bit”, based on a documentary project “Ukrainian Soviet Mosaics” (2013-2021) and the archive of photographer Yevgen Nikiforov, encompasses more than fifty monumental mosaics of the 1960s and 1980s that were broadcast on the facade of the Leopold Museum, accompanied by Ptakh_Jung's music.
The artworks include mosaics by Ada Rybachuk and Volodymyr Melnychenko, “The Tree of Life” and “Boryviter” by Alla Gorska, “Nothing is better than a young mother” by Stepan Kyrychenko and Nadiya Klein, “Sea and Fish” by Volodymyr Patyka and many others.
Many mosaics in Ukraine have been destroyed since the Russian war started in 2014 and even more after the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022 (at least a quarter of the mosaics used in this animation were destroyed or severely damaged by the Russians). So, in 2022, artists reimagined the earlier work to create spectacular audiovisual artworks, Discover Ukraine: Bits Destroyed, broadcast on the old Royal Naval College (London) and the Danish War Museum (Copenhagen).
Talk: Between two fires: monumental Art in Ukraine
Yevgen Nikiforov, together with curator and art historian Lizaveta German, talk about the monumental art legacy of Ukraine of the 1960–80s: its history, disputable status in contemporary culture, challenges of research and protection, and threads of disappearance under Russian shelling.