With Love. From an Invader. Image by Yan Wang Preston Wednesday 13 May / 8am – 2.30pm / free, online / RSVP
What is the socially engaged approach in photography and education? How are contemporary challenges, including war, political instability, and environmental crises, reshaping approaches to teaching? How does photography respond to the ecological crisis? What are the decolonial approaches to working with archives in the East of Europe?
These questions will be discussed at Peer to Peer: UK/Ukraine, a one-day symposium in Lviv, organised by the Ukrainian Photography NGO in collaboration with Lviv National Academy of Arts, Open Eye Gallery (Liverpool), University of Salford (Manchester). The event will bring together cultural practitioners, teachers, curators, archivists, researchers and students for a direct exchange of knowledge and skills about different aspects of photography.
Speakers will discuss socially engaged approaches to photography, photographic practices in higher education, photographic response to the ecological crisis, and aspects of decolonisation in the East of Europe.
The Symposium talks will be available online with English translation.
Programme
8am: Intro from Lucy Zoria, Head of Arts at British Council Ukraine
8.20am: Photography and interaction with the public
(Elena Subach, photographer, Ukraine; Sarah Fisher, Executive Director of Open Eye Gallery; Tadhg Devlin, photographer, teacher, Head of social practice at Open Eye Gallery)
Elena Subach will talk about her new project, based on a socially engaged approach. Sarah Fisher will present the public gallery’s approach to socially engaged photography. Tadhg Devlin will share his experience in education, organisation and artistic practice.
9.20am–9.30am: break
9.30am–10.30am: Collections, commissioning and decolonial perspectives
(Lindsay Taylor, Director of the University of Salford Art Collection, Andrii Usach and Аnna Yatsenko, NGO After Silence (Lviv)
10.30am–11.30am: Photographic Practices in Higher Education: Addressing Contemporary Challenges
(Daryna Skrynnyk-Myska, Head of the Department of Contemporary Art Practices at the Lviv National Academy of Arts; Caroline Edge, Co-Programme Leader BA Photography at the University of Salford, Manchester)
Daryna Skrynnyk-Myska and Caroline Edge will discuss how contemporary challenges, including war, political instability, and environmental crises, are reshaping approaches to teaching.
11.30am–12.30pm: break
12.30pm–1.30pm: Ecological crisis, nature and photographic response
(Yan Wang Preston, artist, UK; Kateryna Pokora, artist, Ukraine)
Yan Wang Preston, who collaborates with the Royal Horticultural Society, and Ukrainian artist Kateryna Pokora will present new works, With Love. From Invader and The Colour of Cyan, respectively, exploring ecology, history and photographic coverage of the environment.
1.30pm–2.30pm: Photo archives of Eastern Europe and decolonisation
(Max Gorbatskyi, Head of Exhibitions at Open Eye Gallery, founder of Ukrainian.Photographies platform; Iryna Sklokina, historian and researcher, the Centre for Urban History (Lviv); Ileana L. Selejan, curator, lecturer in Art History, Culture and Society, University of Edinburgh)
Max Gorbatskyi, Iryna Sklokina, and Ileana L. Selejan will discuss methodologies, access, and collection narratives in their work with photographic archives.
‘Peer to Peer: UK/Ukraine’ is supported by the British Council’s UK→Ukraine: Culture Sync programme.