Jour Fixe Culture Studies  with Svitlana Shlipchenko and Oksana Dovgopolova | Chair: Ljiljana Radonić

Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, decolonization has taken command in the public spaces of Ukrainian cities. In her lecture, Svitlana Shlipchenko will focus on the radical transformations occurring in symbolic landscapes today, examining the criteria and factors for critical engagement with heritagization and de-heritagization processes. Furthermore, in the first two years of the all-out war memorialization was a spontaneous grassroots practice and numerous cemetery-style memorials appeared in public space. However, now people point out the need for a professional approach, i.e., organizing a community of people familiar with memory-related matters, conducting research, developing competitive selection procedures, building a framework for engaging with traumatic experiences and fostering public dialogue with communities even in cases of conflicts that arise due to controversial nature of some memorials. In her lecture, Oksana Dovgopolova will present the aims and results of the Laboratory of Memorial Practices, organized in 2024 by the memory culture platform Past / Future / Art and and the NGO Museum of Contemporary Art and discuss how the Laboratory helped to develop a new language of commemoration despite the absence of working memorialization patterns.

Svitlana Shlipchenko is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Philosophy, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and director of the Center for Urban Studies. She initiated and co-authored the concept of MSc in Urban & Regional Planning at Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture. Visiting professor: Kyiv School of Economics (MA in Urban Planning and Post-war Reconstruction); Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture (MSc in Urban & Regional Planning); Kharkiv School of Architecture (2018-9); National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (2007-18). Visiting lecturer: University of Cambridge; Penn State University; Columbia University, University of Charleston. Visiting scholar: University of Cambridge; Penn State University; University of London; University of North London. Fulbright Scholar (2002-3). Her scholarly interests include decolonization and post-colonial studies, heritagization – deheritagization, memorialization in urban public spaces, gender and feminist studies of architecture.

Oksana Dovgopolova, PhD in Philosophy of History, Professor in Kyiv School of Economics, co-founder and curator of the Past / Future / Art memory culture platform. Research interests: development of the new Ukrainian Language of commemoration in the context of Russia-Ukraine war, Odesa image in “memory entrepreneurship”. Teaches on the contemporary practices of commemoration. As Past / Future / Art curator develops public history projects focusing on artistic practices. Co-organizer of the Laboratory of Artistic Research of War Experiences “Land to Return, Land to Care” (2022) and the Laboratory of Memorial Practices in Ukraine (2024). Co-curator of the Art exhibitions “From 1914 till Ukraine” in Kunstmuseum Stuttgart (2023), “Ground Shadows” in Kazerne Dossin Memorial Center (2023), “Mikki-Mouse Steppe” in Odesa National Fine Art Museum (2024) etc. In 2024 co-curates the Ukrainian pavilion “From South to North” at the first Malta Biennale of Contemporary Art.