CONNECTIONS
DECEMBER 2022
Anna Kovalevska was originally invited to the project as interpreter and translator to support the online meetings. However her emerging creative talent led her to join AiD as an artist. Anna left the project in April 2023 to complete her MA in Photography.
To ensure the quality of the fine art limited edition prints planned for the first AiD exhibition in March 2023, Anna travelled to Europe in early December 2022 to meet with four of the displaced Ukrainian artists: Galyna Daniliuk in Slovakia, Tetiana Kovalenko in Czechia, Lolita Sanamyan and Vladimir Voropai in Austria. She photographed a selection of their work, took their portraits in their host countries and talked with them about the changes and challenges that the war had brought to their lives. Each artist was photographed with the most precious belonging that they had carried with them as they left their homes.
Frome AiD:WV presented a pre-exhibition talk at Frome Town Hall in February 2023.
We shared the progress of our communication-through-art project from its inception in July 2022 through to our first exhibition in March 2023.
We provided an insight into our ways of working:
- Our online meetings, our online platform enabling us to upload artwork focussed on agreed themes,
- Anna Kovalevska’s meetings with Galyna Daniliuk, Tetiana Kovalenko, Lolita Sanamyan and Vladimir Voropai
- The practicalities of working together under the direction of Volodymyr Bakhtov to create our first Heliograffiti
- What it means to be part of AiD: WV
We also facilitated a lively post-talk discussion with the audience.
JUNE 2023
Karin Campagna is an artist and AiD co-ordinator, her vision for the project has always been ambitious; the Heliograffiti, the first exhibition, the pursuit of the second exhibition in Rabka-Zdrój, Poland and (yet to be achieved) ‘Frome Times to New York Times’. Working with Pam Warner, artist and project administrator, she liaised with Town Twinning Associations from Frome and Rabka-Zdrój to take a selection of War Vocabulary original artwork and CONNECTION ЄДНАННЯ limited edition prints to exhibit during the Quadripartite twinning event in June 2023.
The Rabka-Zdrój Twinning Association generously offer to host any AiD artist who could travel to Poland. Svitlana Poluyanova from Kyiv, Galina Daniliuk from Bratislava and Vladimir Voropai from Knittelfeld made their way, with their own original artwork, to join Karin and Pam in Rabka-Zdrój. Together five AiD artists hosted the second AiD exhibition.
During their time in Poland many discussions took place, often with the support of Karyna, a young displaced multi-lingual Ukrainian musician. Most importantly the Ukrainian artists shared their desire to move on from War Vocabulary to a more positive focus for the second year of AiD.
L to R: Pam Warner, Karyna, Svitlana Poluyanova, Karin Campagna, Galyna Daniliuk, Yelena & Vlad Voropai