TOLOCAR: Mobile Makerspaces

Funding: GIZ

Partners: MitOst e.V., Cadus, BUR, Creative Rural Hub, Metalab, proto produktiia, Art Pole

Duration: May — September 2022

Budget: EUR 74,442.50

Coordinator: Olga Kukush

The project «TOLOCAR: Mobile Makerspaces» deals with restoring damaged or abandoned buildings and conducting cultural interventions in cities and villages. TOLOCAR has brought together teams of makers and volunteers from all over Ukraine that jointly renovate premises for displaced people and build public spaces. The TOLOCAR itself is a vehicle equipped with various tools, machinery and equipment to create a space for learning, community engagement and interaction.

Our role in the project is cultural interventions — a series of events at TOLOCAR workplaces with artists, makers, and volunteers to establish community connections and implement the learning-by-doing principle.

In 2022, we realised art interventions in four regions:

Mural in Ivano-Frankivsk. The artist and volunteers created a mural on a building for displaced persons.
2 art camps, «Body of the city» in Verkhnyi Verbizh and Stryi. Teenagers worked on the magazine and joint exhibition, learned more about space, participated in performative practices and completed a quest.
2 art-therapy events to restore dilapidated premises in Motyzhyn, Kyiv region. Schoolchildren and the community restored the school wall, on which they created a mural, and worked with the landscape around the school.
9 workshops and master classes for over 100 participants in Kyiv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Khmelnytskyi regions. Namely: shopper painting, felting, straw weaving, 3D printing, a workshop on alternative photo printing methods, and creating collages and pottery.

In 2023, we will expand the network of Ukrainian and foreign makers, involve veterans and Ukrainians who have returned to the country. We will continue implementing cultural and artistic interventions and plan to increase the number of TOLOCARs to 4 cars.