Open Archive

"Open Archive" is a tool for the long-term study of artistic practices, initiated by curators Lizaveta Herman and Maria Lanko together with the artists from "Open Group". The online platform that was developed during this study shares the method of the curatorial work of the authors of the project and at the same time presents its interim results – profiles of artists with biographies, selected works, texts, and other information.

Guests of the event were invited to participate in the discussion around the idea of​​"open archives." The authors also plan to look at the problems of such phenomena as art archives and to discuss its possible forms and strategies. How are critical discourses around the cultural identity of individual regional communities constructed? Why is the history of Ukrainian contemporary art still on the peripheries of academic interests and why does it remain the heritage of oral traditions? What sort of art archival bases are needed today in order to create a coherent decentralized narrative?

During the presentation the curators of the platform in the dialogue with Open Group were talking about the initial idea of ​​the project and the course of the research, the first study excursions to Lviv and Uzhhorod, and the unexpected conclusions they reached from studying the Western Ukrainian art scene.