FOTOKRONIEK 97
In Pieces — Unfolding a Photobook
For In Pieces, Sophia Bulgakova, Lia Dostlieva, Ola Lanko, Katia Motyleva, and Kateryna Snizhko, developed new works, affected by the ongoing war in Ukraine and made with a child in mind. While some projects directly address younger audiences or are inspired by children, others draw on the artist’s personal memories and experiences. What are the stories behind each project, how do five works come together in one publication, and what does it mean to produce a work with “a child in mind”?
Editor and curator Elisa Medde will be exploring these and other poignant questions together with the artists.
26 February 2024, 20.00
Pakhuis de Zwijger, Grote Zaal
More info here
Book Launch at Foam Editions
18.1.2024
Join us on Thursday 18 January at Foam Editions in Amsterdam for the launch of the publication “In Pieces”.
During the event, curator, researcher, artist and publishing expert Delphine Bedel will moderate a Q&A with the participating artists.
Sign up here!
Do you have photobooks for kids at home?
5.7.2023
Are you in Arles during the opening week of The Rencontres d’Arles?
Librairie du Palais invited Growing Pains to participate in an informal talk ‘Do you have photobooks for kids at home?’
One of our co-founders, Daria Tuminas will speak about photobooks for kids with Jan von Holleben – an author and an editor of young readers program at Little Steidl. Together, they will discuss a few cases of books that they will bring to Arles and will share their observations on the current state of the niche as well as its potential. It is an informal dialogue, so feel free to join and share your thoughts too!
The event takes place on the 8th of July at 11:30,
10 rue du, Plan de la Cour, 13200 Arles.
Language: English.
Istota
Meet the forces of your
imagination
Workshop
21.5.2023
14:00-16:00
Age: 10-12
Language: Dutch
Our world is an unpredictable and
ever-changing place. It can colour with sparkling joy and have shades of
sadness. It is filled with wondrous creatures called Istotas – the guardians of light and the carriers of our emotions. Istotas maintain the balance in this
Universe and help us navigate challenges. But Istotas are not easy to see. They appear to those who know where
and how to look.
Are you ready to meet these magical creatures? Ola Lanko, an Amsterdam-based Ukrainian-born artist, invites you for a playful afternoon – a journey into the world of emotions fueled by imagination. Using images and stories from her ongoing project, she will introduce you to the world where feelings have characters and help you find your own superpowers.
The workshop is organised by Growing Painsin collaboration with Bureau Postjesweg. It is made possible with the support of the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts.
To register, please email Bureau Postjesweg or Growing Pains.
Image © Ola Lanko, from the project Istota (2023), commissioned by Growing Pains.
Are you ready to meet these magical creatures? Ola Lanko, an Amsterdam-based Ukrainian-born artist, invites you for a playful afternoon – a journey into the world of emotions fueled by imagination. Using images and stories from her ongoing project, she will introduce you to the world where feelings have characters and help you find your own superpowers.
The workshop is organised by Growing Painsin collaboration with Bureau Postjesweg. It is made possible with the support of the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts.
To register, please email Bureau Postjesweg or Growing Pains.
Image © Ola Lanko, from the project Istota (2023), commissioned by Growing Pains.
Second collective session at
Enter Enter, a space for books
18.3.2023
Four months after our inaugural meeting in November, we came back to Enter Enter for a second group session.
Ola Lanko, Sophia Bulgakova, Lia Dostileva, Katia Motyleva and Kateryna Snyzhko took turns introducing their projects. As artists shared their images, they each spoke about their process, the questions they chose to address, as well as the questions they were confronted with as the work was taking shape.
We spoke about gravity and vigor, powers and sensibilities, endless stories and long lines, coded messages and mother tongues, nurture and anguish, traces and messages. We looked at books and imagined how ours could look.
It was a full day of preciously open and vulnerable conversations that left us with a glimpse of what the publication can become in just a matter of months.
Studio visit with Kateryna Snizhko 02.03.2023
Behind the scenes… While artists work on the projects for the upcoming publication, Growing Pains arranges studio visits. We ask a few external experts to join a vulnerable and open conversation about the work-in-progress with each of the participating artists.
Kateryna Snizhko’s studio is located at a beautiful shared spaces of Da Vinci Creatieve Ruimtes. We visited her together with artist and writer Andrea Knezovic and curator and researcher Frank van der Stok . We tried to “unpuzzle” puzzles Kateryna prepared for us, deconstruct her working process, and enjoyed the pancakes made by the artist.
A small snippet of a three hour conversation: “The time is perceived by kids differently than by adults, the understanding of presence is built by patterns, like puzzle patterns… When I thought about the present and how to talk about it with kids… I was thinking of this Ukrainian school with a lot of people who needed to leave their houses. Parents try to control and construct reality for their kids, and they build these superstructures on top of reality, while kids are just living through reality. So I was thinking about deconstruction on so many layers. Even if we deconstruct, we try to construct something, to link a word to our experience in the past or expectation of experience in the future. That’s why I like the idea of repeatability, recurrence of events. And with these puzzles I am curious to see how far I can go with constructing something out of deconstructing.”
Studio visit with Sophia Bulgakova 15.12.2022
On December 15th, Sophia Bulgakova welcomed our group and guests at her studio in the Hague. The visit was the first in the series of five feedback sessions hosted by the participating artists. Sophia who is part of Trixie – an artist-run space located in the Hague’s Stationsbuurt – prepared a feast of traditional ukrainian food which fueled the conversations about her practice and ongoing projects.
An artist Mari Kolcheva and writer George King joined us for the afternoon.
© Hani Chladilová
First collective session at Enter Enter, a space for books 20.2022
For our current project, we are invited five makers of Ukrainian heritage to create work reflecting on their experience of the ongoing war in Ukraine, made with a child in mind. To instigate and facilitate this process, it is essential that we create a safe space for the makers to bring their lived experience into work all while the war continues to be their present day. To do so, we defined a structure for collaboration and curatorial and editorial support that includes workshop sessions with the group and artist hosted studio-based reflection meetings.
On November 20th, 2022 we invited Katerina Motyleva, Kateryna Snizhko, Lia Dostlieva, Ola Lanko, and Sophia Bulgakova to meet us at Enter, Enter, a space for books in Amsterdam, to kick off the creative process in our first collective session.
Ayumi Higuchi introduced us to the space and her practice. We used the rest of the day to get to know each other, page through a collection of historical and contemporaty artist and children’s books and dive into the various approaches, visual elements that appealed to each of us. We spoke about the concept of a “child” that each of the artists could be addressing their work to.
Thank you Enter, Enter, a space for books for hosting us and Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst for supporting this part of our project.