VERONIKA SKLIAROVA & PARADE-FEST
LONG-TERM COLLABORATION: UKRAINE
Veronika Skliarova from ART DOT and Zoe Lafferty from Artists On The Frontline first began collaborating in 2020. Travelling across Ukraine, they have collaborated with those using arts, activism and social movements to fight political change and explore the use of culture in the face of Russian colonisation, invasion, and censorship. Each iteration of their work pushes the boundaries of testimony, blending it with digital technology to amplify stories of resistance on the global stage.
VERONIKA SKLIAROVA
Veronika Skliarova is a renowned Producer, Cultural Manager, Cultural Activist and Arts Journalist, from Kahrkiv in the East of Ukraine. As the founder of ART DOT, she creates and produces a vast array of multidisciplinary projects.
Outside of ART DOT she has created the educational project Safe Theater: Laboratory of New Rules of the Game, curated the urban research project Plant Expeditions, which used contemporary art to draw back the Iron Curtain from giant Soviet-era factories and produced Crimea, 5 am at the Dollmen Theatre, on the human rights situation in occupied Crimea.
Most recently, she was the coordinator of the Ukrainian pavilion at the Avignon Festival, was a member of the jury of the Polish drama award Avrora in Bydgoszcz, and coordinator/producer of the exhibition “Kurbas. Maysterni”.
ART DOT
ART DOT is one of Ukraine’s leading independent multidisciplinary arts organisations. Conducting artistic and educational events that spark civic activism and foster social responsibility. They cultivate an ecological space for meaningful change, shaping a new Ukrainian identity while confronting challenges such as inclusion, media manipulation, and human rights.
For multiple years, ART DOT ran an annual festival called Parade-Fest, providing a much-needed cultural platform to come together about human rights, LGBTQ+ rights, feminism and inclusion - using arts in outdoor and public spaces to engage a broad range of society.
When the full-scale invasion began, Anthology 24, a collection of texts for theatre, was published, providing Ukrainians with the most extensive insight into the full-scale invasion by artists. Performed by theatres globally, the publication is now in its second edition.
Responding to the impacts of invasion and war, Arts Thearpy Force is a large-scale therapeutic project that uses modern academic methodologies to restore the psychoemotional health of society. Working with Ukrainian children, IDPs, veterans and children in shelters and cancer hospitals, they are also working to implement programs in universities in Ukraine to achieve the certification of art therapists.
FEAR INTO ACTION
2020 -2021
Exploring how activists, artists and everyday Ukrainians transformed their fears into creative activism.
Together with musician Stas Kononov, dancer Nina Khyzhna, and director Artem Vusyk from Neft Teatr, we collated powerful and unique testimonies. Stories took us from marching at Pride festival, acts of rebellion against the patriarchy, a survivor’s battle with cancer and women who held up balloons as they walked toward tanks in Crimea.
At the height of the pandemic, as many felt stuck in limbo due to lockdowns and isolation we shared these inspiring stories through in-person and digital spaces. When the full-scale invasion began in 2022 we published a selection to read online.
FREEDOM OF CULTURE
RESISTING AN EMPIRE
2022 -2023
Once the 2022 invasion began the transformation of fear into action became an urgent question across Ukraine. Veronika and Parade-Fest led multiple projects that used, education, social and political creative innovation on the frontline in Ukraine.
With the widespread destruction of Ukraine’s theatres and art museums and the persecution of writers and artists, we began to research and document the attempt to eradicate the country’s cultural identity - a tactic of war. Travelling across Ukraine we interview artists discovering their bravery of artistic expression and the personal costs behind standing up to an empire.
WITH FIRE AND RAGE
2023
An immersive audio adventure, sharing stories from artists on the frontline in Ukraine. Combing testimony with video, visual art, 360 photography, poetry and music, this smartphone adventure explored creativity's powerful role in the face of invasion.
Over 1000+ audience members walked through Liverpool, hearing stories of creative resistance at key public and cultural locations from the Liverpool Everyman to the Philharmonic. Narratives took audiences from music concerts in metro stations during air raids, to artworks smuggled out of cities as rockets fell, to subversive street art created under Russian occupation.
Winning The Stage Digital Award 2024, With Fire And Rage was commissioned by Culture Liverpool for EuroFestival as part of Eurovision 2023.
POLITICS OF MEMORY
2023
In a series of talks organised by the Jam Factory and curated by Veronika, artists came together to speak about the role of storytelling during war and invasion.
Taking place across two days in Kharkiv during the ongoing bombardment, artists Peter Armenovsky, Nina Khiznoi, Zoe Lafferty, Veronika Skliarova and Dmitry Zaets led talks and discussed their experiences and challenges creating art in the context of war.
BETWEEN THE EARTH AND ME
2024 - 2026
“Between The Earth and Me” explores through testimony the connection between personal and environmental catastrophe in Ukraine and how the impacts of ecocide, genocide, and colonialism are deeply interwoven. A lament for the devastating impact of war on people and the planet, first-hand narratives reveal the deep connection between life, death, and the land—soil as a burial ground, earth as protection in frontline trenches, overgrown fields as a mask for landmines, and how the names of birds’ have become references to identify drones.
A celebration of Ukraine's deep-rooted environmental values, we will explore how scientists, lawyers, academics and activists within Ukraine have documented hundreds of environmental crimes and are building a case that to take to the International Criminal Court, and joining the call to make Ecocide the 5th crime under the Rome Statute.
“Between The Earth and Me” is currently in development, with the first research phase taking place in Ukraine in September 2024. The aim is to create an immersive audio experience, combining storytelling, testimony, poetry, illustration, music and soundscape. Immersing global audiences in audio from Ukraine they will be guided through an outdoor place of their choosing - their favourite local park, a country lane, or a path alongside the canal. As they listen and walk, a journey unfolds of rivers, forests and fields, connecting audiences to those on the frontline exploring what regrowth means in the face of profound loss.
VICTORIA AMELINA
At the beginning of July 2023, writer, poet and war crimes researcher Victoria Amelina was killed in a Russian missile strike.
Victoria’s mission to piece together and connect Ukraine’s history, geography and culture, in turn, built connections and solidarity with those internationally.
It was Victoria’s knowledge and documentation of the attempts to destroy Ukrainian cultural identity, that prompted us to meet and ask her to contribute to With Fire And Rage.
LUTFIYE ZUDIYEVA
Lutfiye Zudiyeva, is a Crimean Tartar writer, journalist and Co-ordinator of the Crimean Solidarity Human Rights Network was detained.
Getting to know Lutfiye and her formidable work as a writer and human rights defender, she was a key collaborator on Fear Into Action in 2021 and With Fire And Rage in 2023.
As journalists, lawyers, writers, and activists in Crimea continue to face repression and imprisonment, including Lutfiye herself, we share monthly updates on the situation.