Art workshops for people with disabilities
Amici are art workshops for people with disabilities within the international movement Gli Amici.
The workshops were initiated in Kyiv by the volunteers of the Youth for peace movement in March 2019, and in December 2019 the Memorandum of cooperation with Mystetskyi Arsenal was signed. According which Mystetskyi Arsenal gave a public space for conducting art classes and also attracted the participants of the workshops to visit the educational events. Amici united adults with disabilities from state geriatric boarding houses and volunteer assistants.
The meetings took place on Saturdays once in two weeks. They became open platforms for informal communication for young people and for their collaborative art practice. Despite that all the participants were not professional painters, the art and its various manifestations became the way of expressing thoughts and reacting to the surrounding world. Amici’s workshops were guided by the principles of respect and tolerance, they appreciated dignity and tried to include the people with disabilities in social interaction.
Art classes and excursions with the participants of the workshops took place during some exhibition projects (Oleg Holosiy. Non-stop painting, Paraska Plytka-Horytsvit. Overcoming gravity, Special cargo! The history of the return of Ukraine’s cultural property), and switched to online format during quarantine.
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Art classes during Special cargo! The history of the return of Ukraine’s cultural property exhibition
Photo: Oleksander Popenko © Public Enterprise “NACMC ‘Mystetskyi Arsenal”