(Re)Grounding - From beneath the ground to the future
28 November 2024 - 28 March 2025
(Re)Grounding artists: Volt Agapeyev, Alexandra Clod, Dariia Dantseva, Dasha Podoltseva, Marisa Satsia, Oleksandr (Alex) Sirous and Karolina Uskakovych
Collaborating artists: Alexey Shmurak and Matthew O’Toole
Curator: Lucy Nychai
(Re)Grounding is an urgent call to build solidarity towards environmental justice through artistic production and community exchange.
Over the past two years, the participating artists have been seeking answers to environmental challenges during residencies with D6 in Cyprus and the UK and with IZOLYATSIA in Ukraine, drawing threads between the histories shared between their homeland and communities of the mining areas of Lefke and Skouriotissa in Cyprus and the North East of England.
Their artworks are presented together in an online exhibition. Taking the artists’ research and responses to create a journey: beginning deep in the earth, moving to extraction and invasion, then to gardening and finally looking to the future.
Each artist brings a unique perspective, expressing their findings through their chosen mediums. They respond with poetry, performance, experimentation, film and photography, incorporating collaboration, science and technology.
The projects investigate the impact of industrial activity on the environment, with a particular emphasis on the effects of war, which has left its mark on both the artists and the programme itself. Originally, the programme was set to launch in the city of Soledar, eastern Ukraine - a city now physically destroyed and occupied by Russian forces.
Not only do they confront contemporary challenges but they envision potential solutions for the future of Ukraine and a socially just green transition for us all.
(Re)Grounding 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; the Paul Hamlyn Foundation; the Cyprus Department of Contemporary Culture of Deputy Ministry; the Goethe-Institut Zypern; the NewBridge Project; Vsesvit, and EKATE (Cyprus Chamber of Fine Arts).
(Re)Grounding artists: Volt Agapeyev, Alexandra Clod, Dariia Dantseva, Dasha Podoltseva, Marisa Satsia, Oleksandr (Alex) Sirous and Karolina Uskakovych
Collaborating artists: Alexey Shmurak and Matthew O’Toole
Curator: Lucy Nychai
(Re)Grounding is an urgent call to build solidarity towards environmental justice through artistic production and community exchange.
Over the past two years, the participating artists have been seeking answers to environmental challenges during residencies with D6 in Cyprus and the UK and with IZOLYATSIA in Ukraine, drawing threads between the histories shared between their homeland and communities of the mining areas of Lefke and Skouriotissa in Cyprus and the North East of England.
Their artworks are presented together in an online exhibition. Taking the artists’ research and responses to create a journey: beginning deep in the earth, moving to extraction and invasion, then to gardening and finally looking to the future.
Each artist brings a unique perspective, expressing their findings through their chosen mediums. They respond with poetry, performance, experimentation, film and photography, incorporating collaboration, science and technology.
The projects investigate the impact of industrial activity on the environment, with a particular emphasis on the effects of war, which has left its mark on both the artists and the programme itself. Originally, the programme was set to launch in the city of Soledar, eastern Ukraine - a city now physically destroyed and occupied by Russian forces.
Not only do they confront contemporary challenges but they envision potential solutions for the future of Ukraine and a socially just green transition for us all.
(Re)Grounding 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; the Paul Hamlyn Foundation; the Cyprus Department of Contemporary Culture of Deputy Ministry; the Goethe-Institut Zypern; the NewBridge Project; Vsesvit, and EKATE (Cyprus Chamber of Fine Arts).
ARTWORKS
Welcome to the earth!
Alexandra Clod and Karolina Uskakovych – Earthing Science
The artists invite the audience to reconnect with the ground, to touch nature, and to rethink what we believe we know about our world.
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Extraction
Alexandra Clod – Katabasis, Now and Then, The Roots of My Longing
Alexandra delves into historical and mythological themes, weaving them with personal narratives. Her work explores the concept of extraction, creating connections between three different landscapes.
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Invasion
Dasha Podoltseva – Lostscape: Beach Trip
Volt Agapeyev – St. Sebastian
Alexandra Clod – The Home Wanted
These artists reflect on the impact of war, considering its effect on both humans and nature. They highlight the vitality of the environment and the transformation of the human experience.
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Gardening
Alexandra Clod – An Old Olive Tree Story
Karolina Uskakovych – Common Ground (Boots on the Ground, Hands in the Soil, Nigel’s Leek Book)
Dariia Dantseva – De miy Step? (Where Is My Steppe?)
The artists examine gardening as a form of resistance and a means of preserving traditional ecological knowledge, while also imagining a hopeful future.
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Future
Alex Sirous – We Are Points Floating Around
Dariia Dantseva and Marisa Satsia – Atomic Number 29
Dasha Podoltseva and Alexey Shmurak – The Future Is Safe (Trust the Dinosaurs!, Be Different with Your UFO, Shelter in the Room)
The future is in our hands! The artists explore themes of scientific democratisation, public engagement, and the rejection of illusions.
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In the end, the works in (Re)Grounding connect through digging. Digging back into histories at once personal and political, industrial and ecological, communal, embodied, mediated, mythic…. The land is never simple and nor are our connections to it and to each other. Digging is material and metaphorical – a practice, a journey. It is art and labour.
Tom Jeffrey
SHARED MINING HISTORIEs
(Re)Grounding 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.
For more information contact [email protected].
Image: Dariia Dantseva and Marisa Satsia, Atomic Number 29, 2024. Photo: Andriana Lagoudes
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.
For more information contact [email protected].
Image: Dariia Dantseva and Marisa Satsia, Atomic Number 29, 2024. Photo: Andriana Lagoudes