Results of the project Temporary Un/Availability. Ukrainian-Austrian Art Residency 2021

The first Ukrainian-Austrian Art Residency. Temporary Un/Availability was lasting from July to September 2021, which a ten artists to rethink the concept of place and its (in)accessibility during the pandemic. In September, the Laboratory of Contemporary Art “Mala Gallery of Mystetskyi Arsenal” hosted the final exhibition.

For more information on the process of the new residency, which will be held annually in cooperation with the Austrian Cultural Forum in Kyiv, see the pdf file.

The Ukrainian-Austrian Art Residency (UAAR) is a long-term international project that aims to strengthen ties between the Austrian and Ukrainian art scenes. The project was organized by Mystetskyi Arsenal and the Austrian Cultural Forum Kyiv with the support of the Department of Arts and Culture of the Government of Lower Austria.

The task of the project is to strengthen the continuous dialogue between Austria and Ukraine, to promote the building of a network of professional contacts for participants from both countries, and to integrate the Ukrainian art scene into an international context.

The UAAR lasted three months and had a hybrid format: two months online, two weeks for producing the works, and one week in person in Kyiv with the opening of the group exhibition in the Laboratory of Contemporary Art Mala Gallery.

The thematic framework of the UAAR in 2021 was the study of place in the absence of physical access to it. The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic was an occasion for each participant to reflect on personal boundaries and spaces of personal significance.

The program aimed to explore the conditions of communication and distance between artists, which was addressed in weekly online meetings: aspects of the city, place, and memory through immersion in the local context, and how the study of the digital image enriches and expands visionary possibilities. Thus, the theme of place and (in)accessibility to it united ten Austrian and Ukrainian artists.

The mentors of the residency were the contemporary art curator Alexandra Tryanova and the head of public programs of the Center for Urban History, historian Bohdan Shumylovych.