What Do We Hunger For?

This week I had the opportunity to meet with Eckhard Schneider, Director, and Peter Doroshenko, Art Director, of the Pinchuk Art Centre here in Kyiv. The Pinchuk is a contemporary art centre, showing work by artists from the larger global world of contemporary art. It's unlike any other museum or gallery I've visited here in Ukraine--and most intriguing to me is the fact that, every day, lines of people wait to get in the door (admission is free) to see interesting, pretty challenging, contemporary art. First, I should note that the Pinchuk is open every night until 9:00, and we talked about how pleased they were to have made that decision right from the start, as opposed to having hours that are just business hours.

Why do they have lines out the door? Several reasons, I think, based on my conversations both at the Pinchuk and with others. It's a place that has great buzz--many of the visitors are young people, and it's the thing to do. In a discussion with my students, some felt, in a similar vein, that it was about sensation--the shock of the new.

I was most intrigued by the the director's perspective. He felt that contemporary art allowed Ukrainians something they had not been allowed to have--the chance to make their own judgment about something--and that that was something audiences here hungered for. In more traditional fine art and folk art, during Soviet times, there was a prescribed way to appreciate and think about art. But in new contemporary art, it's a chance to make a judgment--perhaps even a snap judgment, on your own. For me then, it gets back to the idea of individual meaning-making. We all bring different eyes, different minds, and different hearts every time we go to a museum. And at Pinchuk, not yet a full fledged museum but serving the same purpose, they provide the buzz of the new, but also something very old, the chance to use art as a way to look inside yourself and at the world around you.

Above: View of "Sigh," by Sam Taylor-Wood at the Pinchuk Art Centre, copyright 2008. Photo by Sergei Illin

Conceptualizing Exhibits Part 2

Yesterday, Michael Forster Rothbart, Sergii Mirnyi and Irina Leonenko joined my class to discuss how to conceptualize an exhibit of Michael and Sergii's work documenting communities affected by Chernobyl. Sergii gave an overview of the disaster within the context of other disasters; Michael then shared photos of his work. We gave the students, working in small groups, the tasks of developing a big idea for the exhibit (and now I noticed my students, when speaking in Russian or Ukrainian, use the English phrase, Big Idea--perhaps my contribution equivalent to Internet or mobile phone). They also had to edit a group of about 50 photos into a the big idea, think of 2-3 subthemes, and develop one interactive for their theme. We then discussed the exhibits using a simplified form of the Excellent Judges exhibit framework.

They did an amazing job! Four different, thoughtful ideas all surfaced.

My Last Day at ChAes (the Chernobyl plant): Oksana. Alexander, Nadya
This group chose a group of photos to personify a worker on his last day working at the plant. They used a set of photos to take him through the day, with the soundtrack by Kraftwerk, "Radio Activity," which one student managed to download on their cell and play during their presentation. Most interestingly, they ended the exhibition with a computer station linked to the most popular job-hunting website here, and a poster with tear-offs with the "hero" of our story looking for a job. Unemployment is a critical issue here, and they effectively tied the story of one man's time at Chernobyl to a broader contemporary issue.



Chernobyl: A Wave to Life: Anna, Katia, Anna, Maria and Katerina
This presentation used different levels of layering. On one level, it used a time line to explore the effects of radiation and the accident--from an older person with cancer to a young person just beginning her life now. At the same time, they layered it in concentric circles, as radiation spread out from the site itself. And a wave to life? A nod to waves of radiation, and to hopefulness. One class member questioned the time line within the context of Michael's photos--because they are all taken within the last year, rather from the last twenty-plus years. But others felt the photos were appropriate because they showed the consequences and the future within the time span.



Chernobyl: Not What You Think: Anna, Miriam, and Katerina
This group, who also had a sound track (which I can't remember the name of) took a compare and contrast approach. Beginning with a photo of Michael's showing tourists posing on an excursion to Chernobyl, the first section was Tourists' View, with photos and words saying radiation, threat, tragedy, forgotton cities, abandoned homes. For the Residents' View, they used the photos that showed village life; the everyday life of people who live and work in the Chernobyl region. Interestingly, they used markers to embellish these photos, in a way, using highly simplified versions of motifs found in Ukrainian folk arts.



Dead Zone Alive: Yana, Julia, Irina, Alyona
This team also used the concentric circle (which Sergii had drawn on the board for his presentation) but started with a foggy picture of a house at the center--which they described as far, at at the same time, near. Theirs was not necessarily a circle of radiation, but rather a way to show that those affected by Chernobyl were tied together, but at the same time spread out. They used the first person for their presentation, making labels for the photos that included, "We want to move on," "We laugh and love," "We care about our health," "We can be happy," and "We have annoying guests," (those tourists again). The interactive idea: tour guides in the exhibit dressed and presenting as actual villagers.

What were the take-aways for our exhibit team from my students' great work? One, that the story works best when it is personally compelling, rather than just a broad narrative. We all can connect to human stories of both tragedy and everyday life.

Second, that there is a difference between the way Ukrainians view Chernobyl and the way outsiders do, and that exhibits here and in the US might be very different. Michael had one photo of a Holomodor observance and asked the class if they thought it should be included. Holomodor, for those like me, who had never heard of it before beginning to learn about Ukraine, is the Great Hunger of 1932-33. A famine, but not just any famine, but a famine created and enforced by Stalin, intentionally starving millions of Ukrainians. One student thought it should not be included, but another strongly felt that it should, because both Chernobyl and Holomodor represent two tragedies caused by the Soviets. In the US, that's alot of explaining to do (there have been Holomodor exhibits at at least one Ukrainian museum in the US in the past year but I still think it is unfamiliar to most).

And third, that a big idea is always a tough thing to write and that it's work best done in a group process, using the skills and ideas of many. Special thanks to all my students for their creative, passionate, enthusiastic work in a process new to them.

Class photos by Irina Leonenko

Chernobyl Today

I find I haven't yet written about the project here in Ukraine that I've spent perhaps the most time thinking and talking about--two exhibits about Chernobyl. My involvement in the project has come through the happy circumstance of my living situation here in Ukraine. As I began to look for a place to live last fall, fellow Fulbrighter and photographer Michael Forster Rothbart emailed me to say he was looking for a roommate--so luckily for both of us, we now share an apartment and a great deal of conversation about his project--which is documenting, in photographs and interviews, contemporary life in the Chernobyl area today.

Most of the world knows Chernobyl as the world's worst nuclear accident, but most don't know much else about it--I certainly didn't, and I won't attempt to explain it in detail here. Enough to say that the sheer numbers of people affected is staggering: 2393 Ukrainian villages were contaminatd by radiation and 116,000 people were relocated from their homes around Chernobyl. Chernobyl is an event with massive environmental and public health consequences but it is also an event that, for all those many thousands of people, meant an irretrievable disruption of life as they had known it.



Michael's work examines the questions about what having a nuclear accident in your backyard means almost 25 years after the fact: how has it affected families and communities? what are the prospects for change? what is it like to be one of the 4000 people who still work at the plant? How do communities survive through a crisis like this and how are new communities created? What is the role of memory and tradition? Why should we, as Americans or Ukrainian, care about these villages and the people who live there? What relevance does it have to our lives?



We're working on plans for two exhibits: one, in partnership with Sasha, a photographer currently working at the Chernobyl plant, will be limited in scope and will focus in life at the plant itself and the community of Slavutich, where most of the plant workers live. We hope to have it here in Kyiv on the anniversary of Chernobyl and then at the small museum in Slavutich. Our goal is to have it in an outdoor setting so as many people as possible can see it.

The second, larger project is a longer term plan for an exhibition both at the Chernobyl Museum here in Kyiv, in the villages, and at museums in the United States. Plans are just beginning to develop, but we've talked about a whole variety of approaches. My informal role in all this is to be an advocate for audiences, to think about ways to expand and deepen the experience and to provide some help in how museums work in thinking about traveling exhibitions. If you're interested in learning more, or feel that it might be something of interest to your museum audience, please let me know. This coming week, my students will be working with Michael and his colleague Sergii Mirnyi to brainstorm ideas from their own perspectives about the exhibition--I look forward to many minds at work!



Top to bottom:
Chernobyl liquidator Leonid Budkovsky
Chernobyl cancer survivors Lydia and Viktor Gaidak
An inactive information panel in Control Room 1 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant showed the status of all the fuel rods in the reactor pool.
An elderly woman prays during a service at the small Ukrainian church in Novo Ladizhichi village. "New Ladizhichi" was built in 1987 to house evacuees from the original village of Ladizhichi following the 1986 Chernobyl accident.
All images copyright Michael Forster Rothbart

Conceptualizing Exhibits

I've often had conversations with colleagues about whether the conceptual work of exhibit development can be taught, or whether it's something that is creative and intuitive, and hence difficult to actually teach. I'm a big fan of Beverly Serrell's book Exhibit Labels as a helpful way to think about what exhibits do and how you develop them. But sometimes I think the best exhibits come out of a sort of creative dreaming, inspired by objects or events--and I heard an interesting example of this yesterday.

I met with (thanks again to the wonderful Irina) Tanya Kochubynska of the Research and Development dept. at the Kyiv Museum of Russian Art. She's a young museum professional and is in the stages of developing an exhibition for 2010 about Russian fairy tales and art. But what was so interesting, and so great, was that she had, pretty much working by herself, with I believe no formal training in thinking about exhibits, developed a thoughtful approach to a well-sequenced exhibit. When completed, the visitor will be able to learn about fairy tales in opera and theater, and even in Soviet animation; the use of fairy tales in paintings; the ways in which heroes and animals play roles in fairy tales; and the ways in which Soviet era fairy tale images and stories had, as did earlier tales, quite specific messages to convey to the listener or reader.



She shared some of the images from their collection and elsewhere--and they were incredible. The Soviet cartoon of a fairy tale, which we watched, was really beautiful, and very different than American animation, making great use of traditional design motifs. Paintings, watercolor illustrations for books, set designs, engravings and more will make this an exhibit interesting to both children and adults.

So how did Tanya come up with the idea which is very different from any other exhibit at the museum? She said she was closing up the museum one day, and in the room with decorative arts, noticed an object with a fairy tale illustration. I'd been in that room a few days before on a visit and I had only thought about how dull the long glass cases of glass and ceramics were.

But Tatiana's imagination and continued observation led her to think about fairy tales, and about what in their collection was relevant. A little collection digging with her colleagues, and then inquiries to other museums about their collections, has set her well on the road to the exhibit. I also noticed that she was very much a visual thinker, and so her understanding of the work was not only scholarly, but very much also about the visual connections. So I think that her learning style, and a sort of openness to ideas, wherever they come, guided her approach to the project.

I think the challenge for many of the museums I've seen here is how to take that deep curatorial knowledge and enthusiasm and develop ways to translate it into an exhibition format that doesn't require the visitor to take a guided tour to gain the full understanding. (Because, by the way, virtually all of these young museum professionals also have a responsibility for giving guided tours which are a standard feature of all museums here and really the way to gain information.)

Just great to see imagination at work in any museum!

Three Princesses of the Underground by Viktor Vasnetsov from the Kyiv Museum of Russian Art Collection
Illustration by Ivan Bilbin of a Russian fairy tale

Change is Coming!

Everyone in Ukraine says change will take time, it might take generations, it is hard to change the old Soviet way of doing things. But yesterday, I got to see that change is coming, that it is possible to change the old ways of doing things, and that Ukrainian museums, despite difficult financial times, have people working in them with the power and energy to make them new places, connected to their audiences.

I met Tatiana and Anya, staff members at the National Art Museum of Ukraine. The first thing I saw as we entered the museum is a feedback board, asking visitors to share their opinions on how to make the museum their favorite museum. A simple thing, but very unusual here.



And then, just off the main entrance, was an entire room devoted to children--it contained an exhibit about understanding color. The exhibit had contemporary art work from the collections, interactive computer games, and a couple hands-on activities for children. Anya and Tatiana were justifiedly very proud of their work--it was engaging and exciting.

They also do family programs and the technology and software for their computer interactives were developed and contributed by a father of one of their regular young visitors. Their enthusiasm was infectious and I'll be spending a future day with them brainstorming and prototyping some additional interactives. Anya said that one of the hardest things was that she'd been to several different trainings and had heard people talk about interactives and other family activities, but had not been to see them in European or American museums. So hopefully by playing around with some prototypes and some sample family activity materials I brought with me, they can continue the development of new ideas in their museum.



And at the Ivan Honchar Museum, we met again in a planning process for an exhibit on Ukrainian kalitki, or doors. My colleagues there and I will be starting a blog, I believe a first for a Ukrainian museum, that documents our planning process, in both Ukrainian and English. We hope it will serve as a model for other exhibition projects. Our plans include fieldwork in several regions of Ukraine and an exhibition in their newly refurbished exhibition hall, to open this fall. I'll post the blog address when it's up and running.



From top to bottom:
Anya, Tatiana and I in the interactive space at the National Art Museum of Ukraine, photo by Irina Leonenko
Anya and Tatiana with their talkboard board
Anya
The planning team at the Honchar Museum in the new exhibit space
A modern day kalitki

Opinion Leaders

In this week’s class, my students and I had an interesting discussion about where trustworthy information comes from. I cited American surveys that have shown that museums are among the most trusted sources of information. For Ukrainians, that’s not so at all. In Soviet times, museums were used as tools to advance state policy. For instance, in an earlier conversation, one student said, “If the policy was against Poland, then museum exhibits were created to show that Poland was bad.”

Students (none of whom have any direct memory of the Soviet Union because they are too young), said for the Soviets, museums were a replacement for religion; that they were to be spiritual places—not for learning, and certainly not for fun. I learned this the other day when one of the babushkas (one of the old ladies who sit, watching, in every museum gallery) told a friend and I that we should not be talking so much, we would not have time to see the exhibits!

I’m beginning to understand that many museums here suffer from the same kind of public cynicism that pervades other elements of life here as well—as one of my students put it, “everybody lies.” They do believe that everyone lies, but also when asked who they trusted for information, said, “opinion leaders,” and when I asked further about who those opinion leaders might be, it wasn’t quite clear to me. It depends on what you want to know about. And one said, I suspect accurately, that the only people you can really trust for information are your friends. I hope, by the end of my time with my students, that I’ve encouraged the skills of critical thinking to enhance their broad-based knowledge.

What does this mean for Ukrainian museums moving forward? I think there’s an amazing opportunity for museums to begin to break through that cynicism by creating exhibitions that really encourage public dialogue about all sorts of issues—about public policy, about the role and importance of Ukrainian traditions in both village and city, about art, science and literature. But it will take a museum staff with vision and commitment to do so—and in any country, that’s a rare and wonderful thing. I think there are staff here interested in doing that, and unfortunately, a highly bureaucratic, top-down structure makes initiative more difficult.

Like US museums—and even more so—Ukrainian museums suffer from a lack of funds. So the work of changing perceptions is going to have to be not with a big splash, but with small but exciting changes. As my friend Anne Ackerson says, “Good ideas don’t cost money!”

Above: one of Ukraine's opinion leaders in the world of sports, soccer star Andriy Shevchenko.

A Nice Day to be an American

Not much to say, other than it was important and meaningful and memorable to sit with other Fulbrighters, on an dark cold night in Kyiv, watching a jerky, sometimes not quite there live feed of the inauguration. Today in class, my students expressed some cynicism: not much difference between American political parties, the electoral college is not a democratic system, etc. but I find the hopefulness as we face hard challenges ahead to be a compelling part of the American spirit. I felt connected to a whole community--millions of people--who hoped and worked for change. I can't remember any other inauguration, but will remember this one for sure.