Catalogue Residents of Universe

This project became possible thanks to the great support of Ukrainian Cultural Foundation.

Partners of the project: N. Karazin Kharkiv National University Association “Poland-Ukraine” and Cultural Center Zamek, our partner organization in Polish twin city Poznan.

Schafhof — European Center for Art Upper Bavaria, with whom we have the first year of cooperation and who will host Ukrainian artist in Bavaria in November 2019.

Association Klaipėda Department, with whom we also have the first year of cooperation and who will host two residents from Ukraine in November 2019.

British Council in Ukraine, who we collaborate with since 2016 under the program SWAP UK/Ukraine.

Photo credits: Tomas Terekas, Svitlana Izyumska, Mariia Varlygina.

Special thanks to all the participants who shared their photos.

2019

Manca Bajec (UK) Javier Estupiñán (Spain) Raphael Krome (Germany) Anastasia Loiko (Ukraine) Jocelyn McGregor (UK) Patrycja Plich (Poland) Oleksandr Sirous (Ukraine) Anna Taradina (Ukraine) Tomas Terekas (Lithuania)

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International artist residency “Residents of Universe�

International art residency project based on the principle of interdisciplinarity is aimed at establishing effective cooperation of educational, scientific and artistic institutions. The structural units of the V.N. Karazin KNU were involved in its implementation: museums of archeology, nature, history of the University, library, botanical garden, observatory, buildings.

We offered artists from 6 countries to choose a section in the University which they are most interested in and work with its content and space within a month during their residency in YermilovCentre. In such a way we are forming the modern image of scientific and educational institutions as open spaces for communication and innovation and as spaces for the work of contemporary artists.

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Locations

State Museum of Nature of Kharkiv V.N. Karazin National University is one of the oldest nature

museums in Europe. In 1806, to support the educational process of the university, the trustee of the Kharkiv school district, the earl S. Pototsky, bought a collection of foreign subjects collected by Professor Andre from the Hannover pharmacist Gruner, and in 1807, the Italian Chetti’s zoological collection.

Currently, the Museum of Nature of Kharkiv V.N.Karazin National University there are 23 halls of scientific expositions of four departments: geological, invertebrate and vertebrate animals, the evolution of the organic world and environmental protection, taxidermy studio.

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Museum of History of the University.

Kharkiv National University Institute of Astronomy was founded

in January 2002 on a basis of University Astronomical Observatory, founded back in 1808.

The Museum of History of Kharkiv University opened his doors to visitors in December 1972.

Institute of Astronomy is located on two territories. The main base is located in the center of Kharkiv near the Karazin University. And another one, Chuguyev observation station, is in 70 km from Kharkiv, in the southeast of the region. The Institute consists of: Department of Astrophysics, Laboratory of astrometry, Department of Physics of, Asteroids and Comets, Department of remote sensing of planets, Department of Physics of the Sun, Moon and Planets, Department of Physics of the Sun, Moon and Planets, Library.

Today, the Museum has more than 15 thousand units of fixed assets and about 800 auxiliary units. In the photo gallery of the museum, created

by E.V. Simonovsky, collected about 10 thousand negatives, covering the history of Kharkiv University.

Artists have access to the permanent exposition of the museum. The largest number of documents testifies to the Soviet times of existence of the university.

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Botanical Garden The botanical garden was founded in 1804, which is the oldest botanical garden in Ukraine. It contains rich collections of woody and herbaceous plants: more than 7,000 species of local and world flora are represented in the exhibits of the dendrology departments, natural flora, ornamental plants of open soil and tropical and subtropical plants.

The arboretum of the garden is laid down according to the botanical-geographical principle with the elements of phytocoenoses: expositions “Europe”, “Mediterranean”, “Siberia”, “Far East”, “Central Asia”, “North America”, “China and Japan”.

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Central Scientific Library of Karazin University Today, the CSL fund is about 3,400,000 copies (books, magazines, newspapers, electronic media, dissertations, abstracts, manuscripts, etc.). Over the years, the library has collected unique collections: more than 1,000 manuscripts, 17 incunabula, 300 paleotypes, Ukrainian and foreign early printed editions, lifetime editions of the classics of science and literature.

The fund of rare editions and manuscripts (until 1825) has more than 50,000 editions.

Formation of the collection was formed not only in the library, but also by combining a number of book collections of other university departments, the main of which was the library of the Museum of Fine Arts and Antiquities.

Archeology Museum

Ground floor hall in the building of Karazin University

Its history starts from 1807, when the cabinet of rarities was created at the University. In 1933 the museum became a part of Kharkiv National University. The funds of museum are

Main building of Karazin University was built in 1929 by architects S. Serafimov and M. Zandberg-Serafimova for design and construction organizations (“Domproektrostroy�). The authors, designed a building in the style of constructivism a stepped structure, growing from the edges to the center, led to a 14-floors tower in the form of a powerful plate.

Archeology of the Bronze Age Archeology of the early Iron Age Archeology of antiquity Archeology of the late Roman times and the time of the great relocation of peoples

In the 1950s, the building was thoroughly reconstructed: the wings were built, the passages between them and the tower, the new assembly hall, were lined with ceramic tiles. In 1955, after reconstruction, the building was transferred to Kharkiv National University.

Archeology of the Middle Ages and of Modern times Numismatics and bonistics Archaeological finds of precious materials.

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Although the question of the art residency importance can be attributed to a rhetorical one today, I would like to say a few words about this important component of artistic processes. We have four years of international residency experience and still I consider that this is just the beginning.

In fact, the cultural residency is one of the ways of global cross-cultural communication today aimed at promoting open and productive dialogue between artists, curators and cultural managers. In addition, an important mission is to communicate with the environment, with the place, to exchange ideas, knowledge and experience, to establish communication and reflection on what is heard and what is seen. And as a result: understanding, formation of new relationships, the ability to represent yourself and your country in the world.

Residents have the opportunity to travel, explore new cultural contexts, integrate into new cultural communities and get to know other artistic practices, which is certainly a new interesting experience and an impetus for artistic and personal development. That is exactly the reason why art residences have become a very popular form of cultural cooperation.

I believe in the power of cultural diplomacy. The art is changing us and the world around us, allowing us to better understand each other, learn about all the different colors of the contemporary world, find common values and appreciate what sets us apart. Together with our partners we have managed to contribute to this important cause in the course of implementation of this project, as the International Art Residences in YermilovCentre represents the most striking instance of the integration of contemporary Ukrainian art into the European art space.

Nataliia Ivanova, Director of YermilovCentre Centre of contemporary art

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Strong presentiment is a starting point of every journey and every project, artistic residency is both in one, where hopes and intentions play a lead role.

We were happy to host six foreign and three Ukrainian artists in YermilovCentre this year. Continuing the metaphor of residency as a journey I would like to emphasize its nature as going along the unknown path, having a goal, meeting strangers, learning and finding enjoyment in all of that. This movement determines us as alive and developing, overcoming obstacles to understand ourselves and people surrounding us better. Besides all global missions of such cultural exchanges there is a personal growth which you see in every participant of the project. The changes which the residency brought to artists, project team, University hosts and the city will remain long after the last day of the program and this is what really matters.

Olena Kasperovych, Curator of residencies programs in YermilovCentre

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Projects

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Manca Bajec (UK)

based in London and Ljubljana As an artist, researcher and writer, Manca`s interdisciplinary work concerns and is formed through the creation of a particular language which is aimed at observing the formation and reforming of national histories and memories, politics and their developments within space and society. Her practice is inspired by her work as a scenographer and curator and is centered around the engagement with particular shifts in society.

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Of Noise and Reason Prelude Noise: Giants are among us, we cannot see them, but they are here. They are standing still pre tending to be structures, which they are not. These are not the buildings, we thought we had built. There is a time for complacency but now is not that time anymore. Do not be fooled into thinking they are harmless.

They exist for a reason and when Reason appears, we shall know why.

Repeat!

Mass: Beyond the boundary of the unknown, there flows the river of knowledge. There is comfort in familiarity that knowledge cannot give. The unknown remains a faithful companion to us all, those who chose to remain on the border.

Manca Bajec (UK) Of Noise and Reason text, sound, 4:06

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Javier Estupiùån (Spain) based in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

Audiovisual artist, post-producer and screenwriter. The biggest part of his experimental videos describe diverse emotions that he has felt, simply through the use of images of natural and artificial places, movement, video editing, sound and music.

Sometimes, by way of editing, he tries to evoke what he was feeling at the exact moment. In his other works he recreates that feeling by using other images as well as all the tools available.

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With Time and Love Knowledge Grows SCIENTIFIC LIBRARY Library Guide. By subject: Religion and Theology Art Natural Sciences and Mathematics Medicine Architecture Applied Sciences and Technology Geography Philosophy Astronomy Informatics Chaos ...

Javier Estupiñán (Spain) With Time and Love Knowledge Grows video, 12:30

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Raphael Krome (Germany) based in Munich

Raphael is interested in the social, historical and ideological conditions in which objects emerge, creating them thereafter in the singular, self-contained object — influenced among other things by his previous training as a professional producer of desirable but rather unapproachable design objects.

Raphael thinks in spatial, physically infelt situations, in which objects, spatial elements and other actors combine to form a living overall complex. As an artist he enjoys analyzing and reinterpreting the relationships between the layers and reference systems of a place that are often fragmented, and to undertake subtly readable artistic shifts.

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At the next opportunity straight ahead As part of the ‘Residency of Universe’ Raphael has created an installation based on his experience of cycling from Slovakia to Kharkiv together with his impressions of the city, such as Kharkiv’s vibrant markets and his collaboration with the Museum of Archaeology of the University of Kharkiv.

Exploring and combining both his personal experiences and Ukraine’s unique agricultural landscapes, you can see corn plants in some kind of hybrid state. They differ from their usual shape, as he rebuilt the plants one by one. Leaves were carefully removed, added elsewhere; stalks adapted. Raphael invites the viewer to consider when and why we personify things? What does it take to relate to a corn plant?

A few steps further you are standing next to a retired truck tire. A threatening opponent during his bicycle tour and a symbol for the continuous flow of goods. It sits statically in the interior of the gallery.

Yet, inside the tire a small motor continuously pumps water through an irrigation hose that meanders through the room and winds around the corn plants, echoing the never-ending longing for growth. This is contrasted by the indoor fountain-like splashing noise of water flowing back into the tire, just to be sent through the room again and again.

Raphael Krome (Germany) At the next opportunity straight ahead objects, photo, video

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Anastasia Loiko (Ukraine) based in Kyiv

She creates multimedia installations, light projections in the exposition space, at building facades, interior and exterior.

Communicates with worldwide video mapping forums and integrates it to urban architecture, music, and digital video technology.

Creating unique artistic content in different formats — generative, video, sculptures, graffiti and many more.

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“Empowerment” or “Walk to the Heaven” This example of micro-mapping to the facade of the Karazin University was created as a computer game. It is an important part of the accumulation of knowledge and scientific experience on the way to synthesizing the scientific discoveries that are necessary for the mankind.

Anastasia Loiko (Ukraine) “Empowerment” or “Walk to the Heaven” light projection video installation

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Jocelyn McGregor (UK) based in Cumbria (UK)

Jocelyn is on the hunt for the point of transition between internal and external, real and imaginary worlds. Using her own body as a starting point, she explores the inside/outside topography of the female form, exploring folklore, surrealism and supernatural fiction to investigate the identification of women with the earth, the home and the machine.

The materials she uses include domestic fabrics, beauty products, earth pigments and industrial materials — they represent for me a point of transition for the body, the moment it meets the organic or the manufactured world.

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Jocelyn McGregor (UK) objects

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Jocelyn McGregor is a sculptor from Cumbria, UK. Using her own body as a starting point, Jocelyn is in the search of transition between internal and external, organic and manufactured, real and imaginary worlds. By reconfiguring domestic and industrial materials, she blurs the boundaries between the natural world and the manufactured one to create their supernatural hybrid.

As part of the British Council SWAP:UK/Ukraine 2019 Residency Programme, Jocelyn has been working with the Yermilov Centre and Kharkiv State Nature Museum on a project exploring the interplay between the human and animal body, and machine-made forms. During her residency in Kharkiv, Jocelyn has cast wildcat teeth forms and a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake (Crotalus atrox), studied bats at the Kharkiv Bat Rehabilitation Centre, alongside with faking snakes with garden hoses and twigs with internet cables. She will further develop this project in the coming months by combining these experiments in material and form with casts of her own body.

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Patrycja Plich (Poland) based in Poznan

As an artist Patrycja’s works are located between medias, in particular using the specificity of words, found objects and direct encounter with other people. The basis for her activities are environment, geopolitical aspect of everyday and social life, words and writing as navigators in space, the relativity of time and unpredictability of events. Meetings and discovery is the way of her artistic work. She often cooperates with other people — artists, social groups, using a synergy generated during the process. She is actively involved in different areas of human activity (botany, computer science, independent cultures, meeting groups), where art is a unifying point.

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The topologies of totality

Text installation, video, series of fabrics The title of the project indicates interest in the issue of totality, a view of all changes and processes occurring in this space. My interests concern the issue of how architecture determines the way of being in it. The modernist assumption of the structure became the starting point. The text is in places that I considered the least tamed by passers-by, are slightly hidden and not obvious. The text itself in a metaphorical way speaks about our behaviors of staying in different spaces. Starting from the meaning of Ukraine as a place to which I regularly come and to which I naturally got involved through the meaning of the text. Carrying out research on the Slovo Building and a project at the Zakarpattia Hotel in Uzghorod, each time dealing with the meaning of word and architecture, Karazin University has become another reference point for working with writing in the context of being in the space. Other references appearing in the text are the motif of the written word itself, how we remember it, how we combine it with spatial memory. The text is also basically an auto-narrative representation of my initial inquiry process.

The project assumes the continuation, at the level of text development as well as the very study of the contexts of Ukrainian architecture.

Patrycja Plich (Poland) The topologies of totality text installation, video, series of fabrics

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Oleksandr Sirous (Ukraine) based in Kharkiv

Oleksandr works as a new media artist with experimental animation and unconventional narration, projection mapping (3d and 2d animation), realtime generative content using programs like unreal engine and also creating experimental art games.

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Audiovisual universe This installation is devoted to thoughts about the outer space, the universe, about how all the processes in the universe function, starting from the fall of comets and ending with the birth of new stars, which is now an endless path without clear answers and questions. The installation consists of two parts, one of which is a kinect motion sensor, which captures the movement of the viewer and projects it onto a three-dimensional model, which is the image of the researcher on a spaceship.

This part of the installation conveys a feeling of weightlessness, as evidenced by the surrounding levitating objects.

The second part is an interactive virtual space with which you can interact using the keyboard, mouse and other controllers and sensors. This space consists of many levels of immersion allowing you to feel the fullness of the path traveled.

Through them I want to convey my feelings of what I don’t see but what I know about space and the universe: that on the one hand these are endless worlds and spaces inside each other, and maybe they are even cyclical, but on the other hand it can be a kind of simulation, a projection of our thoughts, of our experiences. I’m inside, but for me one thing in common between all this is a path, a journey, whether it lies through the expanses of the universe or deep into yourself, but is there time in this case, because the path is movement, and is there traveling parallel me? With this installation I try to bring myself and the viewer to thoughts or feelings that can help find something inside me or in the unknown that surrounds us.

Oleksandr Sirous (Ukraine) Audiovisual universe interactive installation with 3D graphics

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Anna Taradina (Ukraine) based in Kharkiv

In my creative work I like dealing with different materials and places, exploring them, listening to and revealing their secret sides.

Anna works with performance and land art. She is a regular participant of the Mogrytsya land art symposium and also participated in such exhibitions as “Greater Space”, “Space Border” following the results of the symposium.

She took part in the “Performance days” in Lviv, Ukraine, and was a curator of the “22” projects in “HudpromLoft” and “Projection of Other” in the ComeIn art gallery, Kharkiv.

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Herbarium Collecting herbarium is a very intimate process of communicating with nature. This is a special moment when one begins to notice the natural structures and pay attention to the world that surrounds us. We try to preserve this fleeting moment of unity with nature by hiding plants in the books on the shelf.

Anna Taradina (Ukraine) Herbarium object

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Tomas Terekas (Lithuania) based in Vilnius

Tomas is an artist from Lithuania working in a field of photography.

Using photography as main media he is trying to expand boundaries of genre by mixing different medias and styles. By mixing traditional photography techniques with found objects, archive materials, modern technologies, other artists’ works (etc.) He is trying to create a new visual language as a comment on main subjects of his interests such as changes of urban landscape, human migration, globalization, collective memory, nostalgia, historical and cultural events, post- truth, religion and photography itself.

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Tomas Terekas (Lithuania) ART@ФАКТЫ objects

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“ART@ФАКТЫ“ (Read „artefakty“or „artefacts“) It is through the idea of myth-making that I have decided to approach the Historical Museum of the University (MoHoU). The process of making „art“ of historical „facts“ — by gathering and collecting stories I have heard from museum staff; half real stories, urban legends or generational mythologies‘, myths told from generation to generation of students, passing through the halls of this structure. This is the place and space of my interest. In addition, objects displayed at the museum such as electric piano of Barabashov, which is not working and no record exists of sound it made (according to witnesses it was called the Sound Of Cosmos). Mixing and combining material together I am creating objects — dysfunctional objects such as a hybrid of oars and stilts, based on the story/fact of some French professor in 19th century who used to walk to the University using a stilts because of mud and lack of proper pavements at that time and the other story, that in 50-60‘s there was a swimming pool in the University which was used as a place where local rowing enthusiasts trained.

Working with materials from MoHoU, I am trying to capture the image of the past, which is already a secondary product, always requiring confirmation, renewal and to be reproduced again and again. Using a method of ‘constructive principle’ I am using facts from the past to construct objects (creating a physical body for these facts) and in this way I am keeping it updated (history).

For me the museum [and history itself] is nothing more than a big junkyard full of scrap from the past. Sometimes having huge impact on us while other times void of further meaning apart from the shell of factuality.

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Catalogue “International artist residency “Residents of Universe” Responsible for release: Nataliia Ivanova Design and layout: Irina Olenina Signed for printing 20.10.2019 Print Publishing House “POINT” Certificate of the subject of publishing: serie DK № 6863 from 02.08.2019 61024, Kharkiv, Maksymilianivska str. 11 Tel. +38-057-756-53-25 All rights reserved Texts and images in this catalogue may not be used in whole or in part in any form without the written consent of the authors, artists and copyright holders.