LAB: Docu/SYNTHESIS x Ukraine War Archive: Projects

Winning projects

The open call for participation in LAB: DOCU/SYNTHESIS x Ukraine War Archive lasted for two months, and for 5 days, the selected artists were taking part in an educational module dedicated to the Labʼs theme of cultural heritage and memory. Our jury reviewed all applications and selected ten winners who will create their projects within the Lab. Five of them will receive a production budget, a scholarship, and mentoring support, and another five will receive a scholarship and mentoring support. We have increased the number of finalists and added support methods. Meet the winning projects and their authors.

Film

Archive of Silence

Vartan Markaryan, Vadym Makhitka

A 360-degree virtual reality film. The documentary focuses on the topic of memory and preservation of cultural heritage in museums, using the example of the Poltava Museum of Local Lore designed by Vasyl Krychevskyi in the style of Ukrainian Art Nouveau.

Film

37 Reitarska Street

Oleksandra Pletenetska, Anna Mikheyenko

A documentary film that shows the process of destruction of an architectural monument — a house at 37 Reitarska Street in Kyiv — and the attempts of the city's community to oppose a developer undertaking it.

Installation

Sleep paralysis

Sofiya Korotkevych

Sleep may seem like one of the few ways of recovery available to everyone, but in wartime, when the night increases stress and fears, it turns into torment. This installation is about the daily effects of war, which, although people are used to it, still resembles a nightmare impossible to escape.

Project

Sensitive Content

Viktoriia Lykholot

An interdisciplinary project based on knitting techniques. During the war, thousands of photos, reports, and videos of horrific content flooded the news feed. This project is an attempt to talk about the war without showing it—through the practice of knitting, which, in contrast to violence, relaxes the body and mind.

Project

About stone embroideries of Nova Kakhovka

Victoriya Rosenzweig

An interdisciplinary project about stone vyshyvankas, ornamental panels created by Hryhoriy Dovzhenko in the 1950s during the construction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station, which decorated about 180 buildings in Nova Kakhovka.

Installation

Archive in War

Volodymyr Prylutskyi, Alik Darman

An audiovisual installation based on the authors' experiences of being in the archives of the Film Processing Workshop, which emphasises the importance of preserving film heritage. The work will explore the topic of collective memory and reflect the bizarre interconnectedness that accurately conveys the life of this archive during the war.

Project

Absence

Karina Synytsia

The Absence Project raises questions about memory, time, and ways of preserving collective experience. In the context of the active flourishing of archiving in Ukraine, the author wants to talk about the absence of an ‘archival impulse’, or a certain impossibility of preservation.

Documentary film series

Luhanshchina, My Song

Anna Ivchenko

A series of short experimental documentaries based on interviews with people originally from Luhansk who were forced to leave the city due to the Russian invasion in 2014.

Project

At Night I Dream of an Unattended Garden

Vitalii Yankovyi

An interdisciplinary project about the loss of 2 types of individual landscape or the loss of entire ecosystems amid the war in Ukraine. Restoration of personal landscapes that demonstrate the fragility and complexity of forced migration.

Video diary epic

What will you do if the war continues?

Владислав Плісецький

A three-part video diary epic about Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The film series is dedicated to people from the club and artistic spheres. These heroes are often marginalised in the social context, but their contribution to the victory does not become less important. This is a "document of the era" that will leave evidence of their activity in modern history.