(Re)narrating living worlds

December 6, 19:00 (Kyiv time)

Discussions are held in English and Ukrainian with two-way consecutive interpretation, and with Ukrainian sign language.

A swamp, a dead bird, a tomato. In the discussion we’ll explore the worlds and ecological relations the artists focus on in their films: layered mytho-ecological history of Zamglai wetlands in the North of Ukraine; extinct Dodo’s shattered world and its colonial shadow stretching from Mauritius to continental Europe; and the intimate space of granddaughter-grandmother gardening – growing tomatoes amidst and despite the war. We’ll discuss how moving image might help (re)narrate human-environmental relations, and the importance of paying attention to the living world around us.

Recording of the discussion

Moderator

Iryna Zamuruieva explores human-environmental relationships through photography and writing. Iryna’s current focus is on the environmental history of central Ukrainian landscapes. Most recently Iryna has been an artist in residence at Street Level Photoworks in Glasgow; a research fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna and worked on climate and land policy in Edinburgh.

Participants

Leena Habiballa is a cultural worker with an interest in Sudanese visual/material cultures and community filmmaking/exhibition models. She explores these themes through art/film criticism, research, and her own filmmaking practice. She is currently a member of the artist workers’ cooperative not-nowhere and is the winner of the 2023 Michael O’Pray Prize.

Teta Tsybulnyk born in 1987 in Kyiv, Ukraine. Studied sociology and social anthropology at Central European University (Budapest). Works as a program coordinator at the International Festival of Film and Urbanism “86”. Co-founder of the film and art union ‘ruїns collective’, producer of independent films.

Karolina Uskakovych graduated from the Non-Linear Narrative master’s course at the Royal Academy of Arts, the Hague. Her art examines the entanglement of nature, culture and technology. Since 2021 she has worked as the art director of the Anthroposphere: Oxford Climate Review magazine and has been a member of the Digital Ecologies research group. Karolina participated in the (Re)Grounding Residency and co-founded both the Uzvar Collective and the Ukrainian Environmental Humanities Network, an interdisciplinary space for the academics, practitioners and artists who define this emerging field.