Mystetskyi Arsenal Presents the Exhibition “Vasyl Stus. As Long as We’re Here, Everything Will Be Fine”
On November 13, 2025, the Mystetskyi Arsenal unveils its new major exhibition, “Vasyl Stus. As Long As We’re Here, Everything Will Be Fine.” The project, covering six halls of the Old Arsenal building (12 Lavrska Street), opens on November 13, 2025, and lasts until February 8, 2026.
Curated by Olha Melnyk
CURATORIAL TEXT
“As long as we’re here, everything will be fine” was an affirmation coined by Vasyl Stus in a letter to his friend Anatolii Lazorenko in 1962. These words will find purchase with those who crave steadiness amid the whirl of a turbulent world. Ukraine’s past is full of guiding figures; Vasyl Stus, in particular, has become something of a cult icon—a beacon for the restless.
Beyond the heroic portrait, we invite visitors to meet the brilliant intellectual, publicist, poet, and shaper of language. At the same time, Stus’s work is inseparable from his ethical guidelines. The way Vasyl Stus ultimately managed to live up to the principles he asserted as a young man is awe‑inspiring. In an effort to “not fall prey to defilement” and steer clear of hypocrisy and falsehood, Stus grew a thorn in the side of those in power. His close circle would find him hard-to-understand, and eventually, weighed down by solitude, he would stand up “alone against the whole world.”
Olha Melnyk, project curator:
“Visitors should not expect this exhibition to retell Vasyl Stus’s well-known biography. Instead, we’ve foregrounded several core stories opening up his poetic, literary, and journalistic worlds. All of them are being told by those who experienced them—participants and witnesses to Stus’s life. We offer our visitors to immerse themselves in the interconnected artistic, political, personal, and social milieu of the 1960s–1980s.”
“Vasyl Stus. As Long As We’re Here, Everything Will Be Fine” is Mystetskyi Arsenal’s first project dedicated to historical heritage since Russia launched its full-scale invasion against Ukraine.
Olesia Ostrovska-Liuta, Director General of Mystetskyi Arsenal:
“This project matters deeply to us for many reasons. Not least, we see substantial educational potential in the exhibition, so we are developing a comprehensive educational component and public programme. I am convinced that “Vasyl Stus. As Long As We’re Here, Everything Will Be Fine” will let many Ukrainians discover a new, contemporary, and until now underexplored Stus.”
The project offers an extensive selection of archival materials to illuminate Vasyl Stus’s oeuvre. Visitors will hear Vasyl Holoborodko, Iryna Zhylenko, and Vasyl Stus himself performing the latter’s poems, alongside Nadiia Svitlychna’s Radio Liberty reading of Palimpsests.
The attentive viewer will note how closely Vasyl Stus’s life milestones feel to our own. Under more favourable circumstances, he could have lived into the present. With that, the poet is rather perceived as our contemporary, and the facts of his biography align with our own lives. That is why the exhibition purposefully includes contemporary voices that parallel past experiences. For instance, we tell about Donetsk students both in the late 1950s and early 2000s. Separated by half a century but united by the search for meaning and identity, they enjoy playing chess and, of course, iconically for Donetsk, football.
The exhibition will feature poems by Vasyl Stus read by Serhii Zhadan, Akhtem Seitablaiev, Oleksandra Matviichuk, Yaryna Chornohuz, Myroslava Barchuk, Kateryna Kalytko, Volodymyr Yermolenko, Tetyana Ogarkova, and Taras Kompanichenko.
You can visit the exhibition from November 13, 2025, to February 8, 2026.
Working hours: Wednesday-Sunday, from 12 PM to 7 PM (Ticket Office is open until 6.30 PM)
The exhibition is organised in cooperation with Art Arsenal Community NGO, with the support of the Partnership Fund for a Resilient Ukraine (PFRU).
The Partnership Fund for a Resilient Ukraine (PFRU) is a multi-donor programme funded by Canada, Estonia, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. PFRU’s objective is to strengthen Ukraine’s resilience in the face of Russian aggression by delivering essential support to local communities in collaboration with the Ukrainian government, civil society, and the private sector.
Project partners: The Sixtiers Museum, National Museum of Literature of Ukraine, National Art Museum of Ukraine, Taras Shevchenko Institute of Literature, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Museum-Archive of Ukrainian Samvydav at the Smoloskyp Publishing House, Sectoral State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine, StusCentre Public Association, Kyiv History Museum, PEN Ukraine, Dukat Art Foundation, Association of Relatives of Political Prisoners of the Kremlin, Les Kurbas Lviv Academic Theater, The Ivan Honchar Museum National Centre of Folk Culture, National Historical Library of Ukraine, Vernadskyi National Library of Ukraine, Cambridge.ua.
Exhibition’s technical partner is ERGO.