‘Proof that life goes on’: meet some of the people working to rescue—and re-energise—Ukrainian culture

This article was first published by The Art Newspaper.

Ukrainian cultural institutions and artists are carrying on restoring and creating art as Russia continues to target the country and its cultural identity.

Among them is the Nahirna 22 arts collective, which runs 30 artist studios in the Kyiv Institute of Automation, and was hit by Russian air strikes that killed at least 23 in Ukraine’s capital in August.

Marta Nyrkova, a co-founder of Nahirna 22, tells The Art Newspaper that three artists’ studios were forced to move and many more were damaged. A video posted to Instagram shows blown-out windows and rubble on the floor, as well as pock-marked canvases on walls.

The studios have been a wartime refuge for artists and visitors to “share their feelings, pain, fear, all emotions in their artworks”, in which they can “create a new wave of Ukrainian identity” that makes “resistance visible” in Ukraine and abroad, Nyrkova says.