“UNDER THE OPEN SKY” is a fundraising programme organized in order to support Ukraine and the Ukrainian people in their fearless painful struggle against Russian military aggression in 2022, and to raise funds for the humanitarian organizations and civilian initiatives currently active in the territories affected by war. The program started on April, 12 with a charity dinner by two chefs: Katerina Efimchuk (Wine Love, Kyiv) & Sophia Rudolf (Lovis, Berlin).
The following event is an exhibition of works by two Ukrainian artists — Masha Reva and Ivan Grabko, who are now living and working in Uzhhorod, Ukraine, displaced from their hometown Kyiv, in a temporary shelter studio collectively arranged by artists and architects.
For never has experience been contradicted more thoroughly: strategic experience has been contravened by positional warfare; economic experience, by the inflation; physical experience, by hunger; moral experiences, by the ruling powers. A generation that had gone to school in horse-drawn streetcars now stood in the open air, amid a landscape in which nothing was the same except the clouds and, at its center, in a force field of destructive torrents and explosions, the tiny, fragile human body.
—Walter Benjamin, Experience and Poverty, 1933
It is also an ultimate, factual state of vulnerability, in which the unprotected Ukrainian bodies are being exposed to the shells, bombings, and deadly missile attacks coming at them from above. their desperate appeals to NATO in the first days of the war to close the sky over Ukraine until this moment have been left unanswered. since then, dozens of peaceful cities were destroyed, burnt to the ground, millions of people escaped their homes, and thousands were left behind, brutally murdered. most of these bodies are still lying there, unburied, on the streets of their hometowns, under the open sky in their native land, like seeds that would never grow.
Now, we all remain under the same sky, and we all share the same danger and same responsibility for these terrible events. after seeing the destruction of civilian shelters and hospitals during the siege in Mariupol, mass murders in Bucha and orpin, and confirmed killings of more than 150 small children, a world-given promise ‘never again’ seems to be broken. we have to end the war. We have to stop the unlawful and murderous Russian state, by any means possible. and as Ukrainians, who bravely stood and fought together until this day, we all have to stand united against what seems to be one of the greatest evils of the 21st century.
After this war is over, we all hope to come back to our land. we see this day clearly, when we return and join each other in hard work; the cities will be built again, and the fallen seeds will grow. and our beautiful country, our land will rise, once and for all — free and peaceful, under the open sky.
EXHIBITION MASHA REVA & IVAN GRABKO
28.04 – 1.05
Location:
Lehderstraße 34, 13086 Berlin, Germany
Ngoro Ngoro
Start:
19:00 on 27.04.2022 (invitation only)
17:00 on 28.04.2022 — official opening
28.04-01.05.2022
Ivan Grabko
28 y.o., born in Zaporizhzhia, lives and works in Kyiv.
Ivan’s creative practice includes painting, drawing, sculpture and photography. His artworks are in possession of various private collections around Europe and the US.
Ivan Grabko: “War has permeated my whole life, I see it every morning on the tablecloth, inside my shoes, in the way a child plays with a cat, beyond the peaceful reality threshold, the horror begins on every corner and surface. The image that I only knew about, came to live in front of me. It appears and sticks out of the darkness in which it lives, it feels good and comfortable there”.
Education:
—Art College in Dnipro
— National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in Kyiv.
Exhibitions:
2019 – Solo show, Independent space, Kyiv.
2019 – group show «Let Us In», gallery Sebastien Lepeuve, Paris.
2020 – group show «That empty shop across the street», gallery Sebastien Lepeuve, Paris.
Masha Reva
Born in Odessa, Ukraine in 1987
Masha is a multidisciplinary artist with a background in fashion, working in different mediums including art direction, set, textile and fashion design, her practice includes a number of collaborations with the likes of Simon Jaquemus, Pepsi Co, Rachel Comey, Rijksmuseum, Nadiia and many more.
A distinctive feature of Reva’s practice is an exploration of her “line.” Her drawings cover all kinds of surfaces from murals, jewellery, pottery and textile design to the human body.
Masha Reva: “The series of artworks created for this exhibition is a diary of imagery that represents an unacceptable presence of genocide and pain brought by Russian invasion on our soil but also the power of seasons where spring comes no matter what”.
Education:
2010 Masters in Fashion Design, Kyiv National University of Technology and Design, Ukraine (Curator of the course: Nadiia Kudriavceva).
2015 Masters in Womenswear Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London, UK. (MA program was curated by Professor Louise Wilson and course director Fabio Piras).
Awards / Showcases
2010 Harper`s Bazaar Fashion Forward, Ukraine, Grand Prix
2010 “Glance Into The Future” contest, Ukraine, Grand Prix
2012 WGSN Global Fashion Awards shortlisted among five Emerging Designers
2014 The Pulse Of New Talent by Pepsi x Vogue Italia – grand Prix
2014 Shortlisted among 10 international designers to exhibit in Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
2016 International Fashion Showcase, shortlisted and art direction of Ukrainian installation.
2018 Shortlisted by Vogue Talents, Milano, Italy.
2018 Dutch Design Week, shortlisted for Ukrainian pavilion.
2018 Work Process, exhibition together with Michael Reva, Bursa Gallery Kyiv
2019 Milan Design Week, shortlisted for Ukrainian pavilion.
2019 Fashion Film Festival Milano, art direction for The Rite, best photography winner.
2019 Elle Decoration awards for best tableware.
