supported projects

The Creating Ruin project by Method Fund is an online collection of works by artists and researchers, for whom archives are a critical art form. Method Fund is planning to hold such research-art seminars within the project annually. It will create the context for an accurate and sustained discussion of political and aesthetic approaches to theorizing memory and history in Central and Eastern European Countries, in particular, in Ukraine.
During the year 2019 first seminar Theorizing Ruins took place. Artists and researchers were invited to make theoretical essays and artworks for the next online issue of the Creating Ruin, and to start a discussion on how cultural archives are created and interpreted, how do they define the present. As a result, 14 analytical essays and artworks were created and included in this year’s online publication creatingruin.net. The online resource and its technical capabilities have become a platform for the manifestation and sequel of the author’s forms of archives. The seminar and the accompanying public events built a problematic framework and range of issues for the intensive exchange of ideas between different participants. All the materials are translated into English, providing wide access to the platform’s questions and their visibility in an international context. However, the main intention of Creating Ruin is to become a means of self-historicalization and formation of a local cultural situation.

Case study based on the production process of the film “ADULT” by Zhanna Ozirna, which shows the backstage of the film creation and becomes a playground for local film professionals to develop their skills.
The aim of the project is to build a local film language and independent film product which will speak universal language with international audience and will prosper local film potential.
As part of the project, was completed the production of the feature film “Adult” by the director Zhanna Ozirna, and also conducted an educational part – a case study “FOCUS”, during which team of the project have talked about film production stages, as well as developed ideas of 16 short films by participants. During the educational part of the project, was conducted pitching of ideas, the winner of which received production support of his future film for its further development.

The Biennale of Young Art is a large contemporary art festival initiated by the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, was held in Kharkіv in the fall of 2019. Since contemporary art and culture in general is not very popular among majority of citizens, the biennale’s organizers decided to launch the educational program in the spring and the first project was the Art Mediators’ School. In order to increase public understanding of contemporary Ukrainian art and to expand the audience of cultural and educational events of the Biennale, a mediator between art works and the viewer must be introduced into the exhibition space. During March-May, future art mediators attended lectures from leading cultural figures on contemporary artists, exhibitions and educational practices of Ukraine. Then there were meetings with the curators of the Biennale who introduced the projects of the main Biennale exhibition to the participants. With the necessary knowledge and skills, the art mediators worked on the locations of the Biennale of Young Art.

The festival ‘Zabih’ is a platform for contemporary art researches and discussions. Through the performance art it creates a dialogue between artists and society, people and spaces, history and nowadays. The aim is to create, arrange and support performance art community and popularization of performance art in Ukraine. Make a connection between Ukrainian performance art community and other art communities from abroad. Zabih Performance Festival group invited 14 participants of the official program as well and to arrange performance workshops for 25 participants from different regions of Ukraine.
During the festival, there occurred 17 live performances presentations, 3 performances workshops, presentation of video programs from two international platforms and 4 lectures/presentations from artists. The festival took place in different parts of the city, taking as a basis the idea of ​​a certain decentralization and concentrating activities not only in the center of the city but also to capture new spaces. The unofficial part of the festival took place in the village of Lavriv.

Art Criticism Course is a series of lectures, practical workshops, discussions by foreign and Ukrainian professionals from the creative industries with 10 participants – young art critics and cultural journalists, who were selected by open call. Pascal Gielen, became the headliner of the course, who spoke about criticism and creativity as important components in the modern world. The Course program consisted of lectures on the motivation to be an art critic and ways of critical and evaluative statements, supported by contemporary platforms and media by Lizaveta German; specificities of commenting, interpretation and evaluation of phenomenon of art of Hal Foster by Olga Tykhonova; analysis in the format of slow reading of the text “Return of the real” American art critic Hal Foster by Borys Filonenko. Hal Foster’s critique of Return of the Real has been translated for Course participants and distributed among them for further work. Also, within the program, there was a practical workshop on writing texts by participants on the topic “Why to write about art”, followed by their comments by the course experts and the participants themselves. The result of the writing was the publication of texts of participants on the specialized sites: Korydor, LB.ua, Your Art.