Dispatches from the Quiet Centre, Ukraine: Episode 1 An online discussion with artists living and working in Ukraine

Join colleagues from the Centre for Arts and Politics, an interdisciplinary research unit housed in the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews, to take part in experimental series of discussions on the role of creative practices in
critical times.

The Quiet Centre is a residency for artists and writers that will run between September and December 2024 in Kharkiv, Ukraine, hosting up-and-coming Ukrainian talents. During their stay in Kharkiv the residents are invited to think about the 1920s avant-garde architecture and history of the neighbourhood, while continuing to work on their artistic projects.

The artists will take part in ‘dispatches', online discussions that will consist of a 15-minute talk by the artist or writer followed by a brief discussion and a question and answer (Q&A) session. The dispatches will be moderated by Dr Jeffrey Murer of the Centre for Arts and Politics and Viktoriia Grivina, a St Andrews PhD student and author of the Quiet Centre residency.

The discussions will dive into a fascinating world of writing and art in the frontline city of Kharkiv. The guests will talk about everyday life, and address historical and philosophical questions that Ukrainian artists and writers look at as they stay at the Quiet Centre residence in the historical modernist heart of Kharkiv:

How does an artistic neighbourhood influence what we create?
How do artists reflect the fragility of life in a city that is constantly targeted by Russian missiles?
What is the role of imagination, creativity, and embodied knowledge in the plots and themes the residents work on?

The aim of the dispatches are to open a window, a time-and-space portal between St Andrews and Kharkiv, pondering the connections, policies of knowledge production, and communities of the places.

This first online talk from the Quiet Centre will feature guests Hanna Nevidoma, a writer from Luhansk who is now writing an insightful and humorous book about her travels around the Ukrainian East, and Yevseviia Ziakina , an interdisciplinary artist and the organiser of cultural festivals in Kharkiv.

Hanna will talk about the process of writing a book while being embedded in local contexts, while Yevseviia Ziakin will open a window into a little known world of the 1970s ‘quiet generation' of Ukrainian poets and what traditional crafts have to do with modernist architecture.

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