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Ukrainian cultural platform forced to flee from Donetsk continues work in Kyiv

‘What Izolyatsia did was radically different from the rest of Donetsk’

Cultural foundation Izolyatsia was originally a platform for artists in Donetsk to inspire social development in the industrial heartland of east Ukraine. But in June last year the combined Russian-separatist forces seized their territory forcing them to flee. Many of their artworks left behind were destroyed. Today, the group has launched new projects outside their original homeland. To talk about those initiatives and the organisation’s future plans, Ukraine Today’s Viewpoint is joined by Oleksandr Vynogradov from Izolyatsia.

Tom Bell: For people who don’t know about your art group, can you tell us a little bit more about it?

Oleksandr Vynogradov: Izolyatsia started in 2010 on the outskirts of Donetsk on the territory of the former insolation materials plant. That is why we have the name Izolyatsia. It is a cultural platform. We call it platform for culture exchange. We have three directions of our activities, first of all, these are the art projects, secondly, these are, educational projects: we have a lot of lectures and workshop; and the third direction is trying to promote and support creative industries in Ukraine. Because they are pretty small and they are need help. After the exile in 2014 when we were forced out of Donetsk, and we moved to Kyiv. Now we are located on the territory of Kyiv shipyards in Podil [city district]. Still we try to do as much as we can for east Ukraine; we carry out many projects on the border line. We have a lot of projects in Mariupol, in Kramatorsk and also in Slovyansk. We have a series of events, called Zmina, and all three directions of our activity are represented there: there are culture events, film screening and also lectures.

Watch also Ukraine Today’s interview with Rick Rowbotham and Krists Ernstsons, curators of art-platform Izolyatsia, discussing their project ‘Architecture Ukraine’

T.B.: Why do you think your group was forced to flee Donetsk? What was it about the artwork that didn’t sit well with the occupying forces?

O.V.: Definitely, our platform waspromoting diversity, freedom of speech and freedom of points of view. We had a lot of people with different points of you on the situation in Ukraine. Of course,thenew power in Donetsk, the so-called ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ (‘DPR’) cannot tolerate other points of view. It was inevitable for them to come to our territory. Apart from that, there was a material interest in this seizure. Most of the metal art works and metal installations that were on the territory of Izolyatsia were sold as scrap metal. Now the territory of Izolyatsia is used like a training base for fighters.

Read also New exhibition in Kyiv explores visions of future urban spaces

T.B.: Because it is a big territory, as far as I remember.

O.V.: It’s a huge territory, and now it’s a multi-purpose territory: it’s a training base, it’s an arms depot, it is also the place where they hold hostages. There have been reports of torture at the territory of Izolyatsia.

T.B.: What about your artwork itself, was that statues and paintings, reflecting Donetsk itself?

O.V.: There were a lot of different works. Three were many international art residencies held on the territory of Izolyatsia. Different artists from different countries presented their reflection of the situation on the territory of Donetsk and Ukraine. In general, these were mainly installations, paintings and sculptures – all about contemporary art.

T.B.: It must have been really interesting to get this point of view from outside, what people were thinking of Donetsk. Because outside of Ukraine many people don’t really know about Donetsk itself. So were you surprised by what they did know or what they didn’t know about the region?

O.V.: People, probably, knew something about Soviet heritage, they knew something about industry, but, of course, they didn’t know a lot about cultural life in Donetsk. So they were mainly very surprised to find that there is this Izolyatsia foundation in Donetsk and they were pretty excited about the works there.

T.B.: And before the occupation, what was the cultural life in Donetsk?

O.V.: One of the reasons why we brought this exhibition, the Georgian exhibition ‘Crawling Borders’, is because we were ourselves on a kind of a borderline in Donetsk. We were on the outskirts of the city, and we were also on the borderline of the cultural life. What Izolyatsia did was radically different from the rest of the city. Cultural life in Donetsk was what you would call a traditional cultural life in a provincial town, even though it was a big town. There were of course some theatres, cinemas, but we didn’t have a lot of contemporary art, galleries. It was new even for Ukraine in general, but for Donetsk it was brand new. It was something very different. For example, we held festival of contemporary Ukrainian literature, which was new for Donetsk. Even though there is a community of Ukrainian speaking people in Donetsk, but still it was kind of a marginal event, marginal phenomenon. Because there was a lot of Ukrainian speaking writers from Donbas, some pretty famous poets like [Volodymyr] Sosiura or [Vasyl] Stus, there are still a lot of people, like [Serhiy] Zhadan, who are from Eastern Ukraine. There are a lot of voices from Donbas that say different things from what people usually think about it. People tend to think that people in Donbas were pro-Russian and that is why they let the invaders come without resisting. This is not really true. Of course there are a lot of pro-Russian-people.

T.B.: You even had pro-European protests, before the actual occupation.

O.V.: We had a Euromaidan in Donetsk and Izolyatsia supported it. But it was not very big. Still a lot of people were afraid of vindictive actions again them from the current authorities of that time from [ousted President Viktor] Yanukovych and [oligarch Rinat] Akhmetov. Afterwards they were very afraid of the reaction from the ‘DPR’.

T.B.: One of your members Sergey Zakharov was captured. He continued his art work in Donetsk. Tell us a little bit more about him and what happened to him?

O.V.: Yes, Sergey Zakharov used to be based in Donetsk and he started a series of caricatures on the leaders of so-called ‘DPR’. He placed them on the streets of Donetsk during the night. He was caught in less than a month after that, and he has been tortured. Afterwards, he was released, thankfully. Now he is working in different parts of Ukraine, but his recent work was his mural about election campaign in Mariupol. Also, he made the installation called The House of Cards that Izolyatsia has shown within our project ‘Culture and Conflict. Izolyatsia in Exile’. It was a pack of big cards with the faces of the leaders of the ‘DPR’ and the main card – the joker was Vladimir Putin. We have put a great house of cards. During the performance Zakharov pushed the card of Putin, and the whole construction crashed.

Watch also Ukraine Today’s interview with Serhiy Zakharov: “I wanted to say something aloud, so everybody would hear it”