At some point during 2022, my life became infiltrated by a series of powerful, superhuman Ukrainian women. This was not a surprise – I cultivated it, because colleagues remaining in Ukraine were outside my sphere of influence, and anyway wrapped up defending a large-scale invasion. What I didn’t expect was the powerful effect that these humans would have on me, and how this would somehow enter into all facets of my life: from washing dishes, to my daily routines, to my politics, to my social interactions.
The Krekhno sisters (left and right), with Piliuhina (centre).
Photo: Richard Pettifer
Cultural Workers Studio is a
shared studio space in Flutgraben e.V., which began as an activist intervention
following a series of ‘refugees welcome’ emergency meetings in early 2022. The
studio was initially donated to us by Flutgraben e.V., and conceived as a
co-working space for people fleeing the war in Ukraine. In that first week,
there were just 2 users: me – critic, director, and decorated cultural theorist
– and the teen-genius Ann Krekhno. Anya sat across from me on a small wooden
desk, staring at me with a “don’t fuck with me” stare that she had perfected
during interactions with older men in the refugee camps. That first week of
Anya aggressively defending herself – me clowning in a response that I hoped
read as “harmless idiot” – sticks in my mind as my first negotiation with the
group, a first of many experiences of self-definition against and with this
powerful, angry, displaced force, one which would come to largely define my
next 12 months.
.jpeg)
Liashenko, A. Krekhno, Yanko, mysterious photobomber, and me with Big Koala.
Photo: Sönke Hallman
As we collected more members –
first through pro bono charity events, and then later through a consolidated
and funded series of exhibitions, screenings and workshops – it became clear to
me that I was living through some kind of divine streak of history. Each step
seemed the unfolding of a serial drama with no end. A livestreamed Charity
Concert in May 2022, wildly prepared by Anya and her sister Natalie in the
pure-white walls of Public in Private across from our studio, remains the
origin story of Cultural Workers Studio: Sisters Krekhno plundering the tech
room with a bewildered Sönke Hallman, madly deploying their planning style
honed in Kharkiv with tech-jockey Anna Mudra pulling the reins of the
livestream, musicians cancelling on them and replaced by the last-minute superstars
Anna “Oynnet” Piliuhina and Axxi Oma, who would later become studio members and
good friends. Me, arriving from the 5am train from a theatre conference in
Bratislava, ready to make a last-minute intervention with beer for audience and
flower-gifts for the artists, only to jump back on the bus later that night,
madly scrawling what would become a favourite paper on the theme of “Cancel
Culture” and the banal horrors of putinism.
Axxi Oma sings at Charity Concert of Ukrainian Musicians, Public in Private Studio, Flutgraben.
Still from Livestream
At some stage, I began to notice people looking at our group as though through a window – it seemed impenetrable, impossible relationships forged in the flame of a particular cultural spinoff of the war. A chance meeting with the photographer and human rights activist Ksenia Yanko at a Vitsche demo – after first meeting at a Kit Gavatovicha festival in 2021, (where I promised to open an Instagram account for her and never did) – led to her joining the group, and she and the cinematographer Anita Kopylenko began hanging out at our Tusovkas in late 2022. Around that time, a financial intervention from Artists at Risk and Goethe Institute through tireless work with Or Shemesh meant the studio and its members were suddenly – miraculously – supported by some money, rather than relying on donations that sometimes felt more like well-meant consolation.
Ksenia Yanko with Bruno Marko installing The Bug-Out Bag in alpha nova & galarie futura
Photo: Richard Pettifer
The burst of production that followed led to a series of 25 events: a 10-week course in Ukrainian language at Space Meduza in Kreuzberg led by Hanna Liashenko, with interventions from displaced Philologist Tetiyana Krekhno, an exhibition pairing of Natalie Krekhno and Mudra exploring war crimes by russian soldiers and the savage environmental destruction left by the war in SomoS Arts, were closely followed by an exhibition of Yanko’s project photographing emergency bags in alpha nova gallery, lovingly-developed over several months of dialogues with strangers. The shooting of Axxi Oma’s music video Voda (Water) was interrupted by rain on the freezing February streets of Kreuzberg, while Piliuhina’s Charity Screenings of Ukrainian Short Filmmakers showed the resourcefulness of filmmakers in Ukraine continuing to make short films without access to power or other supplies normally deemed necessary. By the time Kopylenko’s Cinematography and Lighting Club came around, together with the filming of the short film Hanny in the Factory in March 2023, the group had developed an impenetrable shell – nevertheless, the influx of cinematographers from Ukraine shooting in the hallways of Flutgraben led to no shortage of mishaps and adventures, with some beautiful shots and rare (for filmmaking culture) non-oppressive collaborations the result.
Charity Screening of Ukrainian Filmmakers in March 2023
Photo: Anita Kopylenko
With Oma’s Voda now released and our recent performance Living Canvas in Theatertreffen 2023 under our belt, the group awaits the opening of the Project Space Festival – a prestigious luxury to be afforded, but one well-deserved after a brutal year of work. It is possible to love something too much – and indeed, I suffered my worst ever burnout (among a series of worthy candidates) about a month ago, and have had to take a step back from the group. But Cultural Workers Studio remains an inexorable part of my existence – a key point of orientation in a disorienting year for many, my colleagues continually showing me the way forward with their ferocious courage, social media obsession, and constant thirst for event production. Meanwhile, the strange phenomenon of respectful and mutually-supportive relationships between me and younger colleagues creates a threatening image in today’s context, but in the end, may yet be a phenomenon that truly counters the abuse of their lives from the deranged neighbour over the fence. The result is a place of protection and celebration that puts my incredible colleagues front and centre – where they should be – in their public and private battles with forces that seek to ruin them.
Top to bottom: Oma, Kopylenko, N.Krekhno, A. Krekhno, and Liashenko rest after Theatertreffen.
Photo: Richard Pettifer, concept: Anita Kopylenko
---
Cultural Workers Studio is a Ukrainian-led, women-led event production team and co-working space at Flutgraben, Berlin-Kreuzberg.
Richard Pettifer is an Australian director, critic, and theorist based in Berlin.
Cultural Workers Studio will present a series of works inspired by the intervention of cultural mediator Eva Yakubovska (Vitsche, Kit Gavatovycha) as part of the opening of Project Space Festival, June 1, 2023.
Members of Cultural Workers Studio (as of 31.05.2023):
Ann Krekhno
Natalie Krekhno
Axxi Oma
Ksenia Yanko
Hanna Gusieva
Anita Kopylenko
Hanna Liashenko
Anna “Oynnet” Piliuhina
Inga Zimprich/Sönke Hallmann/Viktoria Lyakh/Richard Pettifer (Support)
No comments:
Post a Comment