Ukrainian Exhibition Coexisting with Darkness Named Among Top 50 Worldwide by Hyperallergic
Hyperallergic's ranking of the world's 50 best exhibitions this year includes Coexisting with Darkness, which was presented at the Ukrainian House National Centre from November 2023 to March 2024.
The exhibition was curated by Anton Usachov and Natasha Chichasova. ‘Coexistence with Darkness’ lasted from 9 November 2023 to 31 March 2024.
The exhibition shows Russia's energy terror against Ukraine. It began in October 2023 and was intended not only to deprive the Ukrainian population of heat and light in winter, but also to undermine the ‘mental infrastructure’ of the population and demoralise it. This was also a challenge for the art sector, which had to reflect on social change.
‘When habitable areas are reduced to ‘points of no return’, the artist Fedir Tetyanych's dream of an autonomous living space, a biotechnosphere that can withstand the cosmic cold, becomes more relevant. From a clear engineering construction, it is reinterpreted as a kind of social organisation. Coffee shops, neighbours, friends, or offices that have connected a generator and a starlink (or otherwise solved the issue of communications) create utopian infrastructure nodes. Connecting to the ‘infinite body’ of communications has become an inevitable fate for art objects as well. The exhibition is dedicated to revealing their strategies, dependencies, and weaknesses in the ways they coexist with darkness in times of total uncertainty,’ the project description reads.
Hyperallergic noted that Coexistence with Darkness attracted 5,000 visitors within two months of its opening, despite the regular shelling of the capital, which once again demonstrates that art is a vital necessity in times of war.