Mystetskyi Arsenal: a place for people

ARSENAL: A PLACE FOR THE PEOPLE INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP MYSTETSKYI ARSENAL: SPATIAL DEVELOPMENT SCENARIOS May-June 2017

CURATOR: Mirjan Niemeyer / helsinkizurich (CH/FI) TUTORS: Adriana Pablos, Fani Kostourou, Víctor Cano Ciborro Future Architecture Platform 2017 TEAM:

Nathalie Eldan / Rob Brink / Samuel Iuri /Mariia Rastvorova / Yevheniia Likhachova / Alina Samko

Introduction Background Mystetsky Arsenal, erected in 1783-1801 according to project by Lieutenant General Ivan ( Johann) Meller for the needs of the Kyiv garrison on the site of the Ascension Nunnery, was primarily used for weapons storage. During Ukraine’s independence, starting from 2003, Arsenal became a cultural and artistic institution, and now functions as a multi-functional and multi-disciplinary centre. It hosts exhibitions, cultural and art festivals, art laboratories, as well as government and corporate events on the lease terms.

Area of the Mystetskyi Arsenal Building is 50 000 m², and the area of the site is 12 ha.

These days only 1/3 of the whole area is used, and the most part of the site needs revitalization. The Old Arsenal Building is only partly renovated, with the Ground Floor functioning most of the time. However, basement Floor, Floor 2 and 3 need refurbishment, and they are only partly completed. The scale of investment needed: electricity renewal (1ml. EUR), canalization systems replenishment, heating system upgrade.

60 people are working at the Arsenal in administrative, financial, and curator roles, including 10 curators working permanently.

The Arsenal also engages external curators for temporary exhibitions. The institution has 250,000 visitors per year, with a peak visitor capacity of 90,000 visitors during 3.5 weeks. Mystetskyi Arsenal is in state ownership under the Department of President’s Affairs, with annual government funding of 7 million UAH (238,000 EUR) in 2016 and of envisioned 35 million UAH (1.2 million EUR) in 2017. State ownership, along with government funding, brings certain limitations, such as complicated management of financial operations, restrictions on hiring new personnel, lack of private investment to

support the growth, bureaucratic regulations in the process of decision-making, and political implications.

Ambition and mission the institution The mission of the Arsenal is to promote the modernization of Ukrainian society and integration of Ukraine into the global context, based on the potential of culture. It strives to become an International Art and Culture Institution, with permanent exhibition of contemporary art to be formed in 50-year time span.

VISION “Arsenal: A Place for People” Our proposal is to expand role and impact of Arsenal beyond the Art and Culture significance, making it a force of gravity for community and general public. In the 21st century of thriving horizontal communications, widespread social media and prevailing online payments, to focus exclusively on art and culture might be regarded as a weakness, rather than an advantage.

Capitalizing on people’s potential through extensive and coherent strategy of community engagement can bring the Arsenal immense benefits in terms of making a place more public, than state-represented, vibrant and experimental. Art and Culture will be a major ingredient, a uniting force and environment to foster human interactions and community engagement at different levels.

ART – CULTURE – PEOPLE Placing the core values in the centre, the Arsenal could strive to be accessible, public, inclusive, open, sustainable, inviting, profitable. Therefore we need to expand the target group base from government, artists, cultural practitioners, scholars, visitors, business enterprises, to a larger community of

people, international donors, cultural and educational institutions, non-governmental organizations, international visitors, international artists, architects, designers, social incubators, civic activists, scientists and beyond.

Based on this approach, we need humancentered, creative and innovative interactions at Arsenal. The human-centric approach, i.e. putting people first, can transform the nature of activities and the depth of interactions and extend results of collaborations. The Arsenal could strive to foster human interactions at different levels: between artists and visitors/ community at workshops, festivals, exhibitions; among artists in the art-residence and at artist studios; among community members at the area around. Features of humancentric interventions at Arsenal: - Community-owned - Free public area with transit routes - Free library, kid’s zone, and free open-air cinema - Inclusive environment for all people - Enhanced access from outside (navigation in the city, near Arsenal) - Green area preserved - Historical heritage exposed (foundation of the church, fortification hills) Arsenal should shift its strategy from only Art and Cultural Venue to a more open Public Space open for the entire Community. The Community should be engaged in re-making a place and investing own time, skills, money and other resources to make Arsenal a human-friendly environment where there is a place for everyone. The community will then appropriate the place and this will lead to financial sustainability in the long run.

Our program for the building : - Exhibition spaces - Workshops/Labs

- Artists Studio - Education platform - Polyvalent space - Communication platform - Business incubator, Co-working - Artist Residences - Library - Cinema - Performing space /conference - kids playground - international art support bureau - shop Arsenal should be a place where ideas are born, projects are executed, art is created, goods are manufactured, and teams are formed. Fostering creative human potential can turn Arsenal into 24/7 open creative incubator, which could be one of such kind and size in Ukraine.

Features of innovative interventions at Arsenal: - Fundraising events with community engagement - Reinforced collaborations with external actors (cultural institutions, private organizations, other festivals, business associations).

- Reorganization of the managerial structure, adding Advisory Board consisting of experts and community leaders to shape the strategy and Development Foundation to attract and manage financial and human resources, which can be a new model for financial sustainability.

- Profitable: rental fee from shops, from events (including not only in the Building, but outside at unused green areas).

Arsenal should strive to implement innovative solutions in terms of new collaborations and achieving financial self-sustainability/ profitability.

ACCESSIBLE INCLUSIVE

PUBLIC

VALUES OPEN PROFITABLE INVITING

SUSTAINABLE

ROADMAP To make Arsenal closer to people, it is important to start with community engagement and opening up the Arsenal for people as the first basic and non-expensive intervention. It is equally important for Arsenal to actively seek cooperation with external actors to reach its strategic goals. We suggest interventions on the following layers: Site Building Identity Collaborations – explanation per intervention.

Stage 1. Opening up the Arsenal with vivid community engagement by taking off the walls and cleaning the site. Relocation of the ticket office inside Arsenal.

Arsenal can mobilize community through existing digital platforms (website, Facebook, Twitter, Instragram, YouTube) and Arsenal Friends’ Club membership list (direct emails, calls to opinion leaders among target audience, such as artists, architects, cultural practitioners, activists, etc). Arsenal can collaborate with NGO “Ukraine: No Waste” to lead the cleaning of the site and support the initiative with eco workshops, as well as with Street Food Festival to feed the participants and with Made in Ukraine or Vsi.Svoi Festivals of locally produced products to attract more people to the event.

Arsenal can also engage artist community to relocate the wall with the painting inside, to separate the parking lot from the Piazza. The event should be a fundraising one, with more people receiving Arsenal Friend Card.

Upon cleaning of the site, Piazza, Arena and Backyard Park will be ready for immediate usage, such as hosting annual July

04th USA’s Independence Day organized by American Chamber of Commerce and similar outdoor events. Arsenal can be rented out to Arena and Back Yard Park for events.

It can engage local artists and craftsmen to establish creative eco playgrounds for children in the backyard. At Arena, Arsenal or community can show cultural, human rights, artistic movies in an open-air manner, host theatre performances, etc.

One area, however, will not be ready for immediate use after cleaning – the green site behind the hills, which has lavish greenery and wild dogs. Dogs should be rescued. As per the site development, Arsenal can engage local landscape designers through an open competition to design minimum but effective interventions into the landscape, that will yield immediate results, such as putting simple pathways, allocating lots for urban farming, and similar measure, upon the designed plan. Arsenal can collaborate with sponsors or use fundraised money from the cleaning event to finance the Award for the winning solution of landscape design.

Through collaboration with private enterprises, benches and path walks can be added.

Upon the result of the first intervention, Arsenal will have much bigger support of local community, open green site that can be used freely by people and by Arsenal’s customers to hold events and festivals. This will add to Arsenal’s goal to reach financial sustainability.

Following the opening up, the ticket office is no longer logical in the current place and can be relocated to inside the Arsenal building, placed in the Ground Floor. As a result, the access to Building itself will remain paid, but people can access the entire area around freely.

Stage 2. Improving accessibility of the Arsenal to achieve inclusive environment.

This intervention is most likely to start this year, as Arsenal plans to invest 35 million UAH mostly in infrastructure improvement of Arsenal Building. Capitalizing on the network of people and money attracted as a result of successful completion of Stage 1, Arsenal can be well positioned to improve its accessibility, mainly in the Building itself, such as adding tactile navigation for people with visual or sensory impairment, installing the elevators which can be used by exhibitors to carry materials, by families with children, by elderly, by people with disabilities. Brand identity can also be added such as yellow navigation lines, yellow benches, and the similar. Arsenal can cooperate with advertising agencies which can help pro bono.

Stage 3. Reinforcing and globalizing digital platforms.

This intervention can be done any time, in parallel with other interventions, or independently, as it implies digital interface. We looked at how Arsenal is presented online, and what areas of representation can be reinforced.

Arsenal has a website, Facebook page, YouTube Channel, Twitter account, Instagram Account and is well ranked by Google.

The website is well designed, and features complete information on the events. The first most critical intervention is to activate online booking and purchase of tickets for events, accessible in Ukrainian and English to both local and international audience. To enhance user experience and navigation, calendar of events can be added, also web camera which can translate events outside and video streaming to streamline conferences, workshops, on pre-paid terms. This will expand the audience of Arsenal, as well as income from tickets’ sales. To make website closer to people, more practical information should be added, for example in Menu “Ex-

plore Arsenal”, which can contain: Creative Labs, Artist Studios, etc. Technical bugs should be also fixed, such as proper website adaptation for Mac Safari browser.

As per social media platforms, such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instragram, the Arsenal should make these platforms accessible for international audience – now they are only in the Ukrainian language. All information should be duplicated in English.

The Arsenal can post videos from events, conferences and workshops at its YouTube Channel. Creative and engaging content can be posted on Facebook, and online tickets purchase should be added to social media platforms for the ease of users.

Stage 4. Making Arsenal a Creative Hub, comfortable for people. Opening cafes and courtyard.

A big amount of job is needed to be done to transform Arsenal into such type of place made BY PEOPLE FOR PEOPLE. Arsenal ought to become the platform for exhange knowledge, opinions, visions and personal development.

The main aspects of activity in new Arsenal shoulb be: discussions and workshops, promoting general values and human rights; developing of Art Business in Ukraine; engaging creative youth etc.

Being a communication platform Arsenal should build a strong links and active collaboration with a wide range of organizations, institutions, artists, entrepreneurs that are involved.

As it was mentioned before, the important task of the Arsenal’s activity is to involve young artist into the creative process and to provide them an opportunity of self-expression. So, the Arsenal is going to organize strong collaboration links with Boichuk Kyiv National University of Art and Crafts,

National Academy of Visual Art, Institute of the Arts of Artistic Modeling and Design, Art College of Artistic Modeling, Kyiv School of Design, Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture, National Aviation University, Department of Architecture, Kyiv National University of Technologies and Design.

Engaging and activization of civic ativity potential will be realized in the collaboration with NGOs Clean Ukraine, Ukraine: No Waste, Change Agents and others.

Workshops conducting in Arsenal space should involve the lectors from the best higher eduational institutions including Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Kyiv International Management Institute.

Art Business is one of the main activities taking place in the creative space of Arsenal.

Here Art Business Hub having a strong links with the most innovative Ukrainian business incubators as Foresight project, UnitCity, ImpactHub (Odessa), Urban Space (IvanoFrankivsk, Odessa and Kyiv) is located.

Projects which are realized in Arsenal space can be financed by such famous funds with Ukrainian and international capital as Victor Pinchuk Foundation, Bohdan Gavrilishin Foundation, Soros Foundation, American House, Western NIS Enterprise Fund.

We also propose to engage the funding from big transnational companies working in Ukraine as Microsoft Ukraine and CocaCola Hellenic.

Collaboration with global international organizations inluding UNESCO and USAID and foreign embassies will be in important aspect of the Arsenal.

The financial support of the projects can be also provided also by crowdfunding money, gathered on crowdfunding platform BigIdea

(Spilnokosht), which guarantees to social necessity of the project and provides financal sustainability.

Arsenal is also supposed to have strong interaction whith state art galleries and museums, including National Art Museum, National Museum «Kyiv Painting Gallery», Ivan Honchar Museum (National Center of Folk Culture) and private collections. Our team has a strong hope that Ukraine can manage to take back the pieces of art that were stolen by previous power including former president Yanukovich unique collection.

Belonging to the comminuty Arsenal will collaborate with such governmental bodies as Ministry of Culture of Ukraine and Kyiv City Council (Department of Architecture).

According to our vision, the phisical space of Arsenal will host such functional zones as exhibition spaces, gallery store, library, workshop and labs places, conference halls, cinema/screening rooms, artist studious, art business incubators and multifunctional spaces.

We has a strong belief that hard work and sinerel wish will make the vision “Arsenal: Place for People” real.

Our team is extremely eager to come here with our children (or grand-children may be) in 2030.

Finalizing the courtyard is important at this stage, as it can be a place for open air artist studios, workshops, conferences, and a place to relax and chill out for visitors during the exhibitions. We suggest opening the courtyard for the public, as well, with no entrance ticket, and connecting the courtyard via transit routes with the backyard garden and Piazza. We suggest minimum interventions in the courtyard – putting grass and making path would be sufficient. To emphasize the historical heritage, church foundation can be highlighted.

ARSENAL is owned and managed by STATE Mystetskyi Arsenal

Management (CEO, team)

LIMITATIONS

Opening cafés is also important at this stage – we suggest placing a café in Piazza and in the courtyard, although one more café can be also relevant in the garden behind the hills. Arsenal can carry out an open competition among entrepreneurs for cafes in Arsenal, agree the design and menu, and receive income in terms of rental fee. This intervention will also add to Arsenal financial sustainability.

Stage 5. Adding functions to the Arsenal, using the existing buildings and opening new buildings. Among final interventions at the site we suggest capital repair of the existing buildings, turning the adjacent building to ticket and shop office. The Arsenal can renovate the building using either sponsor money or a bank loan, and then rent shop spaces to local producers. It is important to provide clear guidelines for shop renters in terms of product selection: only souvenirs, books, paintings and other products manufactured in Ukraine.

The existing buildings in the garden behind the hills can be renovated into an artist studio and in the artists’ residency. The Arsenal can cooperate with community, international and local donors, to raise funding for the renovation. Artistic residencies in Europe can help Arsenal management to run a project, such as ZK/U in Berlin (Center for Art and Urbanists).

Stage 6. Improving city navigation to Arsenal.

Stage 7. International Exposure.

Arsenal development foundation

€€€

Mystetskyi Arsenal

Management (CEO, team)

Advisory board (experts, community, leaders)

Site opening: before and after transformation.

Opening the whole site

Outdoor amphitheater

Outdoor amphitheater

Piazza

Opening Up

Opening Up

Tree Paradise

Urban Farming

Urban Farming

Opening the whole site

Opening the whole site

Outdoor amphitheater

Outdoor amphitheater

Piazza

Piazza

Opening Up

Opening Up

Tree Paradise

Tree Paradise

Infrastructure and tree removal

Urban Farming

Urban Farming

Courtyard and public accesses

Courtyard and public accesses

Trees paradise: before and after transformation.

Ramparts: before and after transformation.

Arsenal bulding: temporary artists’ studios

elevator

1st floor

2nd floor

1st floor

2nd floor

Circulation vertical horizontal/halls main accesses

elevator artists studios

Exhbition exhibition space gallery store library

workshops/labs conference rooms cinema/screening rooms multifunctional space artists studios incubator

1st floor

2nd floor

1st floor

2nd floor

Arsenal’s courtyard: before and after transformation.

Digital platform.

First step: website improvements.

Online booking

Fix technical bugs

Calendar of events

Make it international

Add information

Duplicate posts in English

Physical interface: building Arsenal’s identity.

Expanding identity to the rest of the city.

Arsenal’s international promotion.