Projects by ВІЛЬНО/VILNO Fellows
As part of the ВІЛЬНО/VILNO programme, veterans who worked in the cultural or educational sectors prior to their military service receive financial, legal and/or psychological support and take part in networking events. In addition to the grant — unconditional support that requires no activities or reporting — in each round we award mini-grants for participants’ artistic projects. In the third round, three initiatives received them:
- Educational programme as part of the heritage conservation residency on Kyiv, ‘Why Do the Maskarons Cry?’
‘Why Do the Maskarons Cry?’ is a residency designed to raise awareness of the value of Kyiv’s architectural heritage and to stimulate public discussion about the loss of the city’s historical fabric. During the residency, veteran Danylo Gurin and soldier Oleksandr Len will run a special educational programme to give participants a deeper and broader understanding of the context of pre-revolutionary urban space in Kyiv, and to introduce them to the issues surrounding the preservation and restoration of its monuments and artefacts. The programme comprises 17 events and 4 modules. The microgrant will be used to cover fees for experts and lecturers, as well as operational and associated costs. Certain components will be accessible not only to residency participants but also to a wider audience of interested parties. Events open to the public will be announced on the Bezzvuchno do Glukhoty pages.
- Infrastructural support for the independent online radio station 20ft Radio
Due to severe power cuts during the winter, the independent online radio station 20ft Radio was forced to reduce its studio operating hours to just one day—Saturdays—when it was possible to run on a generator that supplied electricity to the entire cluster. To ensure the project’s studio can operate during power cuts and on location, the radio team plans to use the microgrant to purchase a powerful charging station capable of powering sound recording and streaming equipment, as well as gear for on-location events — speakers, subwoofers and audio processors.
- “Parallel lines (do not) intersect”
Maya Polikarpova and her husband are in the military. They serve in different units, have different specialisms and work in different fields. Maya is a professional photographer working in the army’s media department; her husband is an engineer and a UAV pilot. They are in different places, see the world differently and send each other photos and videos so they can get at least a glimpse of each other’s lives. In the project “Parallel Lines (Do Not) Intersect”, Maya and her husband plan to take one photograph a day, at the same time, to “bring their realities closer” at least within the frames and to show, through two different pairs of eyes, what it is like to love in the military during wartime. For this project, the analogue format is particularly important, with its focus on the single shot, and the absence of retakes or takes. The microgrant will enable them to purchase film cameras and film, and to print and present the project’s results in the form of a mini-exhibition.
The ВІЛЬНО/VILNO programme is implemented with the support of the Robert Bosch Stiftung.
