Artwork Gallery – Magazine Issue 2. Connections

Tell us how you met and when you decided to start the project together? Did you
have experience working together before Art-Territory?
Olga: Although we are both from Kharkiv –
the second largest city in Ukraine, Masha and
I did not know each other prior to our professional
relationship.
Our collaboration began through The 4th
Block – an international poster exhibition,
held every three years in our beloved Kharkiv.
The exhibition’s aim is to bring together the
latest trends in international poster design
that have ecological objectives or connotations.
The name of the exhibit – The 4th Block
comes from reactor number 4, which was
destroyed in the Chornobyl nuclear disaster.
Before moving to LA, I served as The 4th Block’s
exhibition curator and a selection committee
member. Over the years I stayed in touch with
Oleg Veklenko – The 4th Block’s founder and
president, who was also one of my favorite
professors and a lifelong mentor.
I always wanted to continue my collaborations
with The 4th Block, because working
with its amazing team was one of the most
memorable and fulfilling experiences of my
career. This is why, when I founded my Poster-
Territory initiative where I launch socially
conscious exhibitions and events, and publish
articles and books on contemporary graphic
arts, I started doing some of these projects
together with The 4th Block.
That is how I met Masha who began working
as an art manager of The 4th Block’s Graphic
Designers Association a few years after I left
for the US. We quickly connected and became
great friends and colleagues. We worked
together on a variety of shows and exhibits
that promoted graphic arts and examined
their impact on the fabric of contemporary
society.
All of this changed at the dawn of February 24,
2022, when Russian forces started bombing
peaceful Ukrainian cities and towns.
A few weeks before the invasion there was
an eerie feeling in Ukraine that the war was
looming, so The 4th Block Association started
a poster call “Stand With Ukraine” where
artists could express their support for our
country. The posters started to pour in almost
immediately and by the time the full-blown
offensive began we had a large collection of
posters by authors from all over the world
that we took to the streets.
The team of The 4th Block – every one of us,
even those who were still in Kharkiv, under
constant bombardments – were uploading
new pictures every day, sending them to print
shops around the globe to be copied and used
in the anti-war demonstrations that were
happening everywhere. In 2022 we launched
20+ exhibitions that featured “Stand With
Ukraine” poster art.
We’ve always believed in the power of cultural
diplomacy. We’ve launched art exhibitions
and design festivals, environmental projects,
and social events to help make the world a
better place. We’ve seen how much can be
achieved using this soft power. Before the war,
we thought the world had, indeed, reached
The End of History, where warfare was dead
and all could be resolved through diplomacy.
How foolish of us.
The war in Ukraine has shown us that, in fact,
Diplomacy is dead and Death is very much
alive! And yet, we still believe that our mission
is not impossible! We must and will continue
our struggle for a better tomorrow, but at the
time of war, we needed to mold the power of
beauty into a weapon.
Artwork Gallery Magazine |
07