Ukrainians on Ukraine, Part II

Researcher Lizaveta German holds a PhD in art history. She has been a part of an independent curatorial collective with Maria Lanko since 2013. Most recently, in collaboration with Maria Lanko and Borys Filonenko, Lizaveta co-curated Fountain of Exhaustion, the project by Pavlo Makov presented at the Ukrainian Pavilion at the 59th La Biennale di Venezia in 2022. She co-edited the books The Art of the Ukrainian Sixties and Decommunized: Ukrainian Soviet Mosaics, contributed to the educational websites Cultural Project and Sense, and lectured on Contemporary Art at Kyiv Academy of Media Arts. She also studied museum collections in Bishkek and nearby cities as part of research for a book about the history of curation in Ukraine and other former Soviet countries.

Kyiv-based curator and visual studies researcher Lesia Kulchynska is affiliated with the Research Platform of the Pinchuk Art Center. She developed and teaches the course “Violence of the Image” at the Kyiv Academy of Media Arts. She worked as a curator at the Visual Culture Research Center (2011-2019) and Set Independent Art Space (2019-2020). Past curatorial projects include Ukrainian Body (2012), Some Say You Can Find Happiness There (2015), The Reason Of Disappearance (Kyiv 2021), Radically Different Society (New York, 2021). She is the author Meaning Production in Cinema: Genre Mechanisms (Kyiv, 2017), and editor of The Right to the Truth: Conversations on Art and Feminism (Kyiv, 2019) and Joseph Beuys: Everyone is an artist (Kyiv, 2020).

Scholar Kateryna Ruban is a PhD candidate in history at New York University, finishing a dissertation about abortions in the Soviet Union. Earlier, she earned masters degrees in Central European University in Hungary and in Kyiv Mohyla Academy in Ukraine. Before coming to the US, Kateryna was a part of the Visual Culture Research Center in Kyiv. Working and living in Ukraine and the US, she has published numerous short articles on current political events in both Ukrainian and English. In Fall 2022, Kateryna will be teaching the course "Ukraine in Wartime" at Arizona State University.

Born in Ukraine, Slinko is a multidisciplinary artist living in the USA. Her practice is rooted in travel and research, and is informed by history and social anthropology. Slinko works across several disciplines, and incorporates forms ranging from political satire to storyboard drawings, moving image, performance, and fieldwork research. Slinko has been awarded the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, and several residencies, including Skowhegan, Henry Street Settlement, Dar al Ma’mûn (Morocco), IZOLYATSIA Foundation (Kyiv), Santa Fe Art Institute, BANFF Centre, Triangle Arts and many more.

Born and raised in Ukraine, Katya Grokhovsky is an artist, curator, and Founding Director of The Immigrant Artist Biennial. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Grokhovsky has received support through numerous residencies including Sculpture Space, The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Studio Program, School of Visual Arts MFA Art Practice Artist in Residence, Pratt Fine Arts Department Artist in Residence, Art and Law Fellowship, The Museum of Arts and Design Studio Program, BRICworkspace, Ox-BOW, Wassaic Artist Residency, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Studios at MASS MoCA, NARS Residency, and more. She has been awarded the New American Fellowship, Brooklyn Arts Council Grants, NYFA Fiscal Sponsorship, ArtSlant 2017 Prize, Asylum Arts Grant, among others.

A first generation Ukrainian American, Adriana Farmiga is an interdisciplinary artist and Associate Dean at the Cooper Union School of Art in NY, whose practice extends into spaces of: education, curating, and community advocacy. Farmiga received an MFA from Bard College in 2004, and has shown in group and solo exhibitions in the United States and abroad. Her work has been reviewed in the New York Times and Artforum, among other publications, and ranges from conceptual still life to video and mixed media sculpture.