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Free, joint viewing of Polish and Ukrainian animation from 1950-80’s. Current selection of Ukrainian films from the archives of the Alexander Dovzhenko Center in Kyiv prepared by Lera Polianskova, screenings in a loop during the exhibition opening hours.

Whale and Cat
Ірина Гурвич / Iryna Hurvych, 8:55, 1969

Cat and Mouse
Владислав Негребецкі / Władysław Nehrebecki, 8:31, 1958
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Where are you, my horse?
Єфрем Пружанський / Yefrem Pruzhanskiy, 9:47, 1988
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_1wTG33uDQ

Little Western
Вітольд Ґєрш / Witold Giersz, 5:25, 1960
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yrxK55GJsE

An Adventure in Stripes
Аліна Малішевска / Alina Maliszewska, 11:00, 1960
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As Petryk Pyatochkin counted elephants
Олександр Вікен / Oleksandr Viken, 9:09, 1984

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Тереса Баджян / Teresa Badzian, 7:30, 1964
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Lera Polianskova

Lera Polianskova
prepared the program of Ukrainian animation

A Message

In the second week of the war, on my newsfeed – this month the news replaced everything — I saw the post of artist Oleksiy Say with the question “When was the last time you were humming something to yourself ?». I knew I didn’t sing for eternity. For eternity, didn’t sing. Did not read. Did not cry. Did not watch any videos. This war forced me out of my everyday routines, my life, my body, I became ill with the war. I was able to cry only on March 17th, in the morning. It was from happiness – there were news from Mariupol: „The bomb shelter withstood. Blockages were taken apart, people were coming out alive!”. At first I cried, then I laughed, then my everyday  affairs started and at one point I noticed that I was singing to myself a song from a cartoon, and realized that I began to recover.

Usually, culture is perceived as a bonus – going to the movies, visiting a concert or watching an exhibition – is a nice addition to everyday life. In the times of crisis — culture becomes a protection, a refuge. Bomb shelter in the theater, a violin concert, also in a bomb shelter – preserves the body and comforts the heart.

That is why it is so important, right now, to return to this shelter, learn new things about it. Animated images, familiar plots from your childhood – a home that is always with us and can be passed on to our children. Cartoons that were not seen yet, but already recognizable — because the language of childhood is universal, it is an opportunity to feel at home anywhere and a reminder that life goes on.

Lera Polianskova, originally from Kharkiv, is an artist, curator and organizer working in the field of media art and sound. In 2018, she was an artist-in-residence at the WRO Art Center for six months. Together with  Max Robotov, she forms the SVITER art group. Lera continues to live and work in Kiev, from where she has prepared a selection of Ukrainian animation especially for our Ukrainian and Polish audience.

Olena Honcharuk

Olena Honcharuk,
Dovzhenko Centre acting director (Kyiv, Ukraine)

Some years ago we met Piotr Krajewski and colleagues from WRO in Kyiv, at Dovzhenko Centre, talking about our institutions and possible projects. Nobody could imagine that the first collaboration would happen in wartime.

Firstly, I have to thank you. All Ukrainians are very grateful to Polish people for your support on different levels – material, professional, diplomatic, humane. I hope we’ll be as true neighbours as you are. And someday we’ll realise a joint art project.

Even in these heartbreaking conditions Dovzhenko Centre team finds the ways to realize our mission as heritage preserving and research institution – to maintain constant bonding with cinematographic memory and make people close to Ukrainian art of cinema wherever they are. It’s our contribution to the Ukrainian fight for identity and sovereignty, for the right to stay humane and civilized.

It’s so cool that cartoons by UkrAnimaFilm are screened at WRO! Good way to make the Polish audience close with Ukrainian classic animation, and also to send warmest regards to Ukrainians in exile.

Olena Honcharuk serves as acting general director of the National Alexander Dovzhenko Center in Kyiv. The Dovzhenko Center is the largest film archive in Ukraine, containing over 9,000 Ukrainian and foreign feature films, documentaries and animated films, as well as thousands of archival documents on the history of Ukrainian cinema.