Bigger Space/Yermilov Centre, Kharkiv
Representing land art within a gallery setting is no easy task. For this reason, the organisers of the exhibition “Bigger Space”, held from 18 June to 10 July 2019 at the Yermilov Centre (Kharkiv), approached it in an unconventional way. The exhibition was a land art project of the symposium “Borderland Space”, founded by artist Anna Gidora, which takes place annually near the village of Mohrytsia, Sumy region, on a chalk plateau rich in archaeological finds, close to Scythian and Slavic settlements. Over twenty-two years, Mohrytsia has become a land art laboratory, where the interaction of art with the landscape is explored. It now functions as a platform for diverse artistic practices and the exchange of experience among artists from across the country—a symposium outside commerce and beyond the traditional gallery agenda.
Accumulating experience and transforming like an organism, “Borderland Space” develops the capacity for self-reflection and awareness of the need for renewal. With each new symposium, the circle of participants shifts and new content is introduced, so that the Mohrytsia space expands without altering its physical parameters. Thanks to experiments with new formats (curatorial groups and the inclusion of participants not previously engaged in land art), the range of media and themes has significantly broadened. Installations and social interventions have been added to the already familiar works and performances in the natural environment, alongside an increase in photographic, audio and video works.
Seeking to move away from the traditional symposium format of an exhibition-report, the curators of the Yermilov Centre project (Nataliia Matsenko, Vitalii Kokhan, Kostiantyn Zorkin, and Stanislav Turina) aimed to make “Bigger Space” a continuation of the residency—a stage in comprehending experience in a different context. The exhibition sought to show how space expands through the enrichment of the semantic field; to trace the routes along which the identity of the place and of the participants themselves is rediscovered each year; and to demonstrate how artistic concerns are reinterpreted through collective and personal experience in situations where the boundaries of the artistic field are blurred. The exhibition became another sub-space within the symbolic space of Mohrytsia, complementing its topos.
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EXHIBITION PRESENTATION
2019 Bigger Space/ YermilovCenter, Kharkiv
Curators: Konstantin Zorkin, Vitaliy Kokhan, Natalia Matsenko
WORKS
Avoiding the use of photo documentation as the simplest and most common means of presenting works created during the residency, the organisers invited participants to produce new works that interpreted the landscape of the Mohrytsia chalk plateau (a former quarry) and “Borderland Space” itself—both as a physical environment and as a social phenomenon, an artistic community with its own characteristics—in interaction with a new context: the space of the Yermilov Centre. Audio-visual works, site-specific installations and objects referring to key elements of the Mohrytsia landscape—the chalk quarry, the steppe, the river, the scorching sun, the flora and fauna, the history and geology of the site—were created especially for the exhibition by Kateryna Buchatska, Yurii Yefanov, Marharyta Zhurunova and Bohdan Lokatyr, Kostiantyn Zorkin, Liusia Ivanova, Oleksii Konoshenko, Svitlana Koshelieva, Yaroslava Maistrenko, Tymofii Osypov, Anton Saienko, Oksana Solop, Violetta Terlyha and Viktoriia Teletien. Anna Taradina and Yurii Shtaida staged performative actions aimed at transforming the Centre’s space. Objects brought from Mohrytsia by Yehor Antsyhin and Nataliia and Oleh Kokhan fitted organically into the exhibition.
The exhibition further featured videos dedicated to the natural and social environment of Mohrytsia, created during the residency, as a full presentation of media works from the symposium is possible only outside the site itself. Their authors included Open Group, Tomash Hazhlinsky, Maryna Konieva, Denys Kurdit, Kateryna Libkind, Serhii Maliuk, Illia Novhorodov and Vitalii Protosenia, Stanislav Turina, and Olha Chekotovska.
Parallel to the exhibition, another iteration of the residency took place in Mohrytsia (21 June — 2 July) with the theme “Feedback.” During the exhibition opening at the Yermilov Centre, a live broadcast from Mohrytsia was held, giving the audience an opportunity to immerse themselves in the atmosphere of the symposium “here and now.” Further broadcasts occurred during the exhibition, including a Q&A with Kateryna Buchatska and performances by Sviatoslav Koverzniev and Nataliia Lisova against a characteristic landscape backdrop. On 10 July, at the close of “Bigger Space”, a video presentation of that year’s symposium and a meeting with its participants took place at the Yermilov Centre “hot on the heels” of the residency.
The 2019 residency brought together 62 participants from Kharkiv, Sumy, Lviv, Uzhhorod, Vinnytsia, Chernihiv, and Kyiv, along with volunteers. The curatorial groups led by Yurii Vyshniakov, Oleksii Konoshenko, Vitalii Kokhan, and Nataliia Matsenko continued their work. Over 40 projects were realised—ranging from performances, photographic and video works, and intimate “laboratory” experiments to large-scale monumental objects. Dedicated to the theme of “Feedback”, the projects addressed questions of meaningful interaction with the environment, anthropogenic impact on the natural landscape, and the imprint left on the individual by close contact with nature.
“Bigger Space” Project Participants:
Yehor Antsyhin, Yurii Bilei, Kateryna Buchatska, Open Group, Tomash Hazhlinsky, Yurii Yefanov, Marharyta Zhurunova, Kostiantyn Zorkin, Liusia Ivanova, Maryna Konieva, Oleksii Konoshenko, Nataliia Kokhan, Oleh Kokhan, Svitlana Koshelieva, Denys Kurdit, Kateryna Libkind, Bohdan Lokatyr, Yaroslava Maistrenko, Serhii Maliuk, Illia Novhorodov, Vitalii Protosenia, Tymofii Osypov, Anton Saienko, Oksana Solop, Anna Taradina, Viktoriia Teletien, Violetta Terlyha, Stanislav Turina, Olha Chekotovska, Yurii Shtaida
Project curators:
Natalia Matsenko, Vitaliy Kokhan, Kostyantyn Zorkin, Stanislav Turina
Organizing team:
Ganna Gidora, Yuriy Vyshnyakov, Viktoriya Bronza