In solidarity with Ukraine

Because, as artist Nikita Kadan has already said "visibility can save lives", we have invited Ukrainian artists, exhibition curators and filmmakers to make their voices heard and to testify to their situation, their experience and their concerns.
This encounter also responds to the initiative launched by several groups of art and culture professionals who are mobilising in solidarity with Ukraine, particularly the artistic scene, notably with collectives such as Beyond the Post-Soviet, Initiative for Practices and Visions of Radical Care, and La Maison de l'Ours.

Rather than a debate in the traditional sense of the term, an evening in the form of a platform, a listening session, an assembly to demonstrate solidarity.

Initiative for Practices and Visions of Radical Care, founded by Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez and Elena Sorokina, came into being in the Paris region during the first lockdown occasioned by the Covid-19 epidemic. Based on friendship and professional collaboration and coordinated by Johanna Fayau and Simona Dvorak, the Initiative has adopted the mission of bringing together curatorial and artistic research and practices associated with caring practices. The concept of "care", situated at the intersection of social, anti-racist and ecological movements, is more and more explicitly linked to that of solidarity. Positioning itself in terms of protection rather than protest, it stresses the importance of taking care and being attentive and benevolent guarantors of our societies as ecosystems. For many years now, several institutions in the Ile de France have undertaken committed work dedicated to all of these questions. We wish to establish links between these essential social and artistic spaces and other international and European art workers and demographics.

Beyond the Post-Soviet, founded in March 2021, is a horizontal international collective that currently includes more than fifty members: researchers, thinkers, artists, curators, and cultural workers. Initially founded as a roaming research group, the collective applies decolonial thinking and includes multiple forms of knowledge in its work on, and commitment to, the geographical and cultural space that stretches from Europe to central Asia. The collective has organised many events and work sessions in cultural institutions in Europe, including Ukraine. From the beginning of Russia's war on Ukraine, the group has mobilised for collective coordinated action to support the local artistic scene. Today, Beyond the Post-Soviet provides support for art workers in Ukraine and abroad, disseminates information, promotes the Ukrainian artistic scene and works to preserve the works and archives of artists, while also providing emergency financial assistance.

La Maison de l'Ours, an exhibition space located in the rue d’Orchampt (Paris), is an association for the production and distribution of contemporary art works. Founded by artists Kristina Solomoukha and Paolo Codeluppi, La Maison de l'Ours is the result of a cooperative approach during the first lockdown designed to meet the needs of artists, curators and the public. It provides a space for exchange in order to articulate thinking on the changes that have taken place in society and in the artistic sphere in relation to the Covid-19 crisis.
The structure defines its activity as an open tool for curatorial action. It includes the creation and distribution of committed artistic practices, as well as hosting artists and exhibition curators in the form of residencies.
For two years, La Maison de l'Ours has collaborated with some hundred artists, art students, exhibition curators and artistic structures in France and abroad. From the very beginning of its activity, it has organised exhibitions in Paris with Ukrainian artists and artistic structures. Faced with the war that Russia has launched in Ukraine, La Maison de l'Ours is mobilising in an effort to coordinate and organise hosting facilities through French institutions and structures for art students and young artists present in Ukraine. It also participates in and initiates events designed to disseminate the message of Ukrainian artists in France.