(Re)Grounding 2024
(Re)Grounding 2024 is an urgent call to build solidarity towards environmental justice through artistic production and community exchange.
Connecting artists with heritage and environmental partners, the next phase of (Re)Grounding journeys from Ukraine to Cyprus and the UK.
While focussed on the climate crisis, the programme has unfolded against Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, highlighting the complex intersections between social, political and environmental issues and the vital role culture plays in navigating them.
Working with artists from Ukraine, ReGrounding draws threads between environmental and cultural contexts, shaped by mining histories in Ukraine, Cyprus and the UK.
For both Cyprus and Ukraine, this can be seen through the lens of occupation and colonial power. In Cyprus, during the British Colonial era, mining industries (once the most important in the country) were controlled and exploited by foreign companies granted extraterritorial rights. Both Cypriot Greek and Cypriot Turkish communities from the area were working together in the mines, with common history and facing similar environmental issues from mining.
The traumatic Russian invasion of Ukraine continues its staggering human, environmental and ecological toll, deeply affecting the people and place. It is destabilising global food markets, including the production and export of wheat, and energy markets, with estimates that over 60 percent of Ukraine’s coal mines are in land occupied by Russian forces.
During the UK’s time of empire building, mass industrialisation took place and was exported around the world, powered by the unrelenting burning of fossil fuels. Now, the UK government’s regression on environmental commitments using narratives on energy security follows the country’s unjust transition in the 1980s, where rapid deindustrialisation decimated local coal mining communities.
Artists taking part in residencies in Cyprus and the UK will reflect on these industrial histories to create new work to enable ways to expose the climate crisis, promoting the future green rebuilding of Ukraine and working towards a socially-just, green transition for the UK, Cyprus and beyond.
(Re)Grounding 2024 is a partnership between IZOLYATSIA (Ukraine), D6:EU (Cyprus) and D6: Culture in Transit (UK). The programme is supported by: the UK/UA Creative Partnerships programme created by the British Council in partnership with the Ukrainian Institute; European Cultural Foundation; Arts Council England, and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
Connecting artists with heritage and environmental partners, the next phase of (Re)Grounding journeys from Ukraine to Cyprus and the UK.
While focussed on the climate crisis, the programme has unfolded against Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, highlighting the complex intersections between social, political and environmental issues and the vital role culture plays in navigating them.
Working with artists from Ukraine, ReGrounding draws threads between environmental and cultural contexts, shaped by mining histories in Ukraine, Cyprus and the UK.
For both Cyprus and Ukraine, this can be seen through the lens of occupation and colonial power. In Cyprus, during the British Colonial era, mining industries (once the most important in the country) were controlled and exploited by foreign companies granted extraterritorial rights. Both Cypriot Greek and Cypriot Turkish communities from the area were working together in the mines, with common history and facing similar environmental issues from mining.
The traumatic Russian invasion of Ukraine continues its staggering human, environmental and ecological toll, deeply affecting the people and place. It is destabilising global food markets, including the production and export of wheat, and energy markets, with estimates that over 60 percent of Ukraine’s coal mines are in land occupied by Russian forces.
During the UK’s time of empire building, mass industrialisation took place and was exported around the world, powered by the unrelenting burning of fossil fuels. Now, the UK government’s regression on environmental commitments using narratives on energy security follows the country’s unjust transition in the 1980s, where rapid deindustrialisation decimated local coal mining communities.
Artists taking part in residencies in Cyprus and the UK will reflect on these industrial histories to create new work to enable ways to expose the climate crisis, promoting the future green rebuilding of Ukraine and working towards a socially-just, green transition for the UK, Cyprus and beyond.
(Re)Grounding 2024 is a partnership between IZOLYATSIA (Ukraine), D6:EU (Cyprus) and D6: Culture in Transit (UK). The programme is supported by: the UK/UA Creative Partnerships programme created by the British Council in partnership with the Ukrainian Institute; European Cultural Foundation; Arts Council England, and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
(Re)Grounding online exhibition(Re)Grounding online brings together the work of seven artists seeking answers to environmental challenges rooted in the industrial and colonial pasts of Cyprus, the UK and Ukraine.
|
Artists' talk: star and shadow, newcastleJoin us to celebrate our (Re)Grounding artists in residence, Dasha Podoltseva and Oleksandr Sirous. The artists will share their work in progress, drawing threads between environmental and cultural contexts shaped by mining histories in Ukraine, UK and Cyprus.
|
Meet the artists selected for (Re)Grounding 2024: Alexandra Clod, Dariia Dantseva, Dasha Podoltseva and Oleksandr Sirous.
|
(Re)Grounding 2022-23 explored the climate emergency in post-industrial contexts through a residency programme with artists Alexandra Clod and Karolina Uskakovych, who connected artistic practice, heritage and communities in the UK and Ukraine.
|
(Re)Grounding background image credit: Map published in Cullis and Edge (1927, Plate II) superimposed on the maps of Skouriotissa published by Kortan (1970: Anlage 5, Blatt 1-4), georeferenced and superimposed over the 2014 aerial photograph of the area created by Dr Athos Agapiou from paper: Kassianidou, Vasiliki & Agapiou, Athos & Manning, Sturt. (2021). Reconstructing an ancient mining landscape: a multidisciplinary approach to copper mining at Skouriotissa, Cyprus. Antiquity. 95. 986–1004. 10.15184/aqy.2021.33.
Graphic design: Andriana Lagoudes
Graphic design: Andriana Lagoudes