Vasyl Cherepanyn. Photo: Olga Ivaschenko.Kyiv’s Visual Culture Research Center recently hosted The Kyiv International, a biennial comprised of lectures by leading critics and cultural figures. I spoke to Vasyl Cherepanyn, one of the co-organisers of the Biennale, about the programme, Ukrainian modernism and the emergence of new walls in Europe – metaphorical and all too real.
This isn't the first Kyiv Biennale organised by the Visual Culture Research Centre (VCRC). How did your work as organiser of the Biennale begin?
We took up this idea three years ago, when it had already been initiated by someone else, but not us. The first Kyiv Kyiv Biennial – Arsenale 2012 – was held as part of the European Football Championship. As an institution, we participated in it with our own parallel programme. The next Kyiv Biennial was at first postponed because of Maidan, and then later it was cancelled altogether because of the decision of the then-Directorate of the Mystetskyi Arsenal. We had previously worked with Hedwig Saxsenhuber and Georg Schöllhammer, the former curators, so we decided to take over the organisation of the “School of Kyiv” in 2015, completely changing its logic and structure.
