Karina Synytsia

"From the series Welcome to Paradise", 2023
photo wallpaper, acrylic

SENSE
OF
SAFETY

Yermilov Art Center, 2024.
Kharkiv, Ukraine.

Curatorial Team:
Tatiana Kochubinska,
Aleksander Komarov,
Maryna Konieva,
Antonina Stebur,
Maxim Tyminko

Organized By:
The International Coalition
of Cultural Workers
in solidarity with Ukraine
and Yermilovcentre

“Sense of Safety” is an international art project highlighting the core exhibition of the same name in the YermilovCentre in Kharkiv, Ukraine, surrounded by an open network of more than 20 cross-institutional events across 12 countries united as “Bridges of Solidarity.” The project emerges from the urgent need to respond to the dire situation in Kharkiv, in northeast Ukraine, around 50 kilometers from the Russian border and subjected
to daily shelling.

The project’s idea is to emphasize Kharkiv’s cultural, scientific, and political importance as an important part of the global world. It aims to draw the whole world into Kharkiv and Kharkiv into the world by promoting the exchange of connections, information, togetherness, and interdependency.

The heart of the project was driven by the fact that at the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the YermilovCentre occasionally turned out to be a real shelter for the artistic community. Nevertheless, it has never ceased its professional activity.

“On February 24, 2022, the YermilovCentre became a meeting place for Kharkiv’s prominent artists, protecting them and respite. We were sure that it was here, in this place, that our lives and our consciousness would be safe,”—Nataliia Ivanova, the director of the YermilovCentre.

The exhibition in the YermilovCentre features works from 31 individual artists and collectives representing over 10 countries, including a significant percentage of new commissions. The exhibition is built around the ambivalence of the concept of safety, which has been profoundly redefined by the war. It also touches upon the idea that safety is understood not only as a feeling but, above all, as an infrastructure of care and communication as a safe place supported by vulnerable bodies through the efforts of people, communities, and institutions.

The ambivalence of safety is broken through the ideas of post-traumatic in-growth and the desire for routine actions as safe-gaining. The exhibition demonstrates different perspectives and modalities of understanding and perception of safety—from children’s rituals to educational practices, from the search for self-stabilization and self-soothing to collective creative action.

The Bridges of Solidarity is one of the main conceptual axes of the project is the idea of interdependence and mutual connectedness, which is embodied in the re-imagining of the exhibition as a medium through experimentation, expanded forms pulling Kharkiv outwards and other geographical locations into Kharkiv.

Aiming to counter the isolation imposed by the war, it integrates online and offline events into a unified space—The Bridges of Solidarity, involving more than 20 both well-established and grassroots partner institutions (ZKM, Karlsruhe, nGbK, Berlin, Arsenal Gallery in Białystok, Roma Community Center in Warsaw, Bouillon Group in Tbilisi, Cobra Museum, Amstelveen, etc.).

Designed as bridges, the events facilitate two-way interaction and connection between the international community and Kharkiv. These events aim to foster solidarity and mutual support.

The entire project is connected through the online platform, the information hub, and the navigation tool. This platform allows visitors at any of our dispersed event locations to explore the entire project, watch live video streams from the YermilovCentre, and view broadcasts from partner institutions.

"Fast, Easy Memory Transfer", 2022
acrylic on paper, 220 × 170 cm

"From the series Welcome to Paradise", 2023
photo wallpaper, acrylic

"Fast, Easy Memory Transfer", 2022
acrylic on paper, 220 × 170 cm

Photo: Oleksandr Osipov

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Design & Layout: Denys-Kamyl Levadny