‘Secondary Archive. Women Artists in War’ – the experience of war by women artists

15 female artists from Ukraine will join Katarzyna Kozyra Foundation’s Secondary Archive platform within the framework of the project ‘Secondary Archive. Women Artists in War’ implemented with Artsvit Gallery, Dnipro and Labyrinth Gallery, Lublin.

15 new female artists will join the Secondary Archive virtual platform, their names will be announced online on the 15th of March 2024, at 6:00 p.m. CET. The event will culminate in the first part of the project, ‘Secondary Archive. Women Artists in War’, which aims to present the practices of female artists working primarily with the experiences of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

During the event, the project’s curators from Ukraine will talk about the process of curatorial work in the face of the war conflict and the works of Ukrainian women artists. As Iryna Polikarchuk, Director of Artsvit Gallery, says: ‘The presentation of the first part of the Ukrainian part of the Archive took place just a few hours before the full-scale invasion – on the evening of February 23, 2022. We consider this project very important now, as it not only pays attention to women’s artistic practice in Ukraine but also archives the intangible heritage of wartime from women’s experience. This allows us to reflect in real-time on the lived experience and changes that occurred in the work of female artists after February 24, 2022. It is also a special opportunity to remind the world art community that the war continues, and there are many women at the front, including some of the participants of the new edition of the Archive’.

Secondary Archive tells the history of mainly Central and Eastern European art through the lens of gender, covering the period from World War II to the present. The archive consists of statements by female artists – unknown sides of biographies and creative practices, often marginalized, neglected, forgotten or little known to the general public.

During the implementation of the second part of the project, 15 female participants will be invited to participate in an exhibition at the Labyrinth Gallery in Lublin, which is scheduled to open in spring 2024.

The statements of female artists from Ukraine, as well as new critical essays by local curators, will be available from the 15th of March at secondaryarchive.org

Project curators: Kateryna Iakovlenko, Oksana Briukhovetska, Alya Segal.

The discussion dedicated to the project’s launch will be live-streamed on Facebook.
Please join the event!
Date: 15th of October.
Time: 6 pm CET / 7 pm EET

The Secondary Archive project was realized by the Katarzyna Kozyra Foundation in cooperation with Artsvit Gallery in Ukraine, and with the support of the Labyrinth Gallery in Lublin

The project ‘Secondary Archive. Women Artists in War’ is supported by the European Union as part of the House of Europe program.