Ukraine is in the midst of its existential struggle for survival. Although the war is still ongoing, it has already wrought profound transformations upon the Ukrainian physical and metaphorical topography. The contours of Ukrainian fields and urban centers have been forever altered, mirroring a shift in mental maps, habits, and ideological and social categories. In its literal and symbolic senses, the landscape is a useful unifying lens to examine the vast array of phenomena that must be revisited and reanalyzed. Just as the war has exposed our deep global interconnectivity, the many landscapes of ecology, emotions, inclusivity, solidarity, anti-colonialism, justice, and the like must be reinscribed globally. How has Russia’s ecological destruction altered Ukrainians’ understanding of climate justice in general? To what extent is the Ukrainian landscape of inclusion and diversity, which has been transformed by the war, part of a global struggle for the rights of the disabled, LGBTQ+, indigenous people, and other marginalized groups? How do the frames of decoloniality shape Ukrainians’ understanding of global decolonial struggles or their conceptualizations of justice and solidarity?
9:45 – 11:15
Visual Landscape: Memorials and Urban Spaces
Discussant: Jelena Dureinovic (RECET)
Ukraine’s Altered Monumentscape
Mischa Gabowitsch (RECET)
Mykola Homanyuk (Kherson State University)
Mosaics at War. On current state of monumental art in Ukraine and the recent methods of its preservation.
Lizaveta German (The Naked Room)
Decommunization of the Urban Space in the Times of War: Kharkiv Case
Anna Ivanova (University of Giessen)
11:45 – 13:15
Representations and Visibilities in Ukrainian Art
Discussant: Magdalena Baran-Szołtys (RECET)
Images of the Chornobyl disaster in Ukrainian art from 1986 to the present
Oksana Semenik (Radio Kultura)
Warscape, Ruins, the Macabre, & a Promise of a Brighter Future in Valentyn Vasyanovych’s Atlantis (2019)
Yuliya Ladygina (Pennsylvania State University)
Transformed Visibility of Marginalized Voices in Ukrainian Comics
Svitlana Pidoprygora (Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University / Basel University
14:15 – 15:45
Environmental Damage and Post-Humanitarian narratives
Discussant: Matthias Kaltenbrunner (RECET)
Post-humanitarian Narrative of Care: Extending the Boundaries of Alterity in the Context of the Russo-Ukrainian war
Yuliia Yurchuk (Södertörn University)
The Return of the Steppe: Weaponizing Landscape During the Russian War in Ukraine
Svitlana Matviyenko (Simon Fraser University)
"30%" -- Research and Art Project on the Impact of the Russian War in Ukraine on Forest, Steppe, and Water
Daryna Pyrogova (independent researcher)
Nina Direnko (independent researcher)
19:00 – 21:00
Transformative Salon "What's Next for Ukrainian Refugees?: Lived Experiences between State "Welcome Infrastructures" and Self-help Ecosystems", organized by RECET (Café Merkur, Florianigasse 18)
