euroWith Fire and Rage
A specially commissioned audio tour will share stories from artists on the frontline in Ukraine with visitors to Liverpool during the city’s Eurovision festivities. Original, designed artwork will mark the nine locations in Liverpool city centre, which are free to access.
Created by renowned Ukrainian producer and cultural activist Veronika Skliarova and British director and writer Zoe Lafferty, With Fire and Rage features some of Ukraine’s most radical and innovative artists. Combining testimony with photography, 360 images, visual art, poetry and music, each of the stories focuses on a different artist in Ukraine. Around 40 artists from Ukraine are featured in the work.
How to enjoy this tour
This is an immersive audio experience sharing stories from artists on the frontline in Ukraine.
- Make sure your smartphone is fully charged
- If you’re using an iPhone make sure you do not use Firefox, instead use Safari or Chrome
- This audio tour is best experienced wearing headphones, so bring them with you too!
- Check the weather forecast. We’re a coastal city, it’s changeable
- Some of the venues might not be open, but don’t worry, you’ll still be able to listen
- You can listen inside, outside, walking or sitting
- If you’re walking, make sure you pay attention to the street and roads around you!
- There’s plenty of coffee shops, toilets and places to eat and drink on route if you want to pause
@paradefest
@artistsonthefrontline
Locations
Liverpool Everyman Theatre
Our Biggest Premiere Yet
The full-scale invasion has put theatres in Ukraine on the frontline. War has meant transforming every corner; the stage becoming a space for humanitarian aid, the costume department a place to make soldiers’ uniforms, and staff becoming first responders.
The world-renowned Liverpool Everyman Theatre is the start of our tour.
Hear from OLHA PUZHAKOVSKA, Executive and Artistic Director of Lesya Ukrainka Theatre, as she describes adapting the venue into a crisis response and humanitarian space, including creating a plan to defend the venue with Molotov cocktails.
Liverpool Philharmonic Hall
Spirits From Concrete and Iron
When bombs begin to fall, artists are forced to lay down their instruments. Renowned musician and guitarist STAS KONONOV has stayed in the frontline city Kharkiv to volunteer. During intense shelling, he provides food and water for the 1000s of people in bomb shelters and living in the Kharkiv Metro station.
St Luke’s “Bombed Out” Church
Flowers That Grow From Concrete
The port city of Mariupol has long preserved its spirit in the face of violence and aggression by turning to culture. Since shelling in 2015, art festivals, exhibitions and creative responses rose to champion the city’s heart. In the past year, the bombardment of Mariupol, frenzied and ruthless, has shocked the world. Artist and Arts Journalist ALVENTINA SHVETSOVA speaks of how she witnessed the bombing of Mariupol Drama Theatre and the murder of the people sheltering there.
News From Nowhere
The Dark Side of the Moon
Journalism is not a crime but, as on many frontlines, the ability to record and report atrocity is a tenet of freedom. Crimean Tatar LUTFIE ZUDIEVA, gave birth to her fourth child as Crimea was occupied and annexed in 2014. An event that inspired her to become a writer and led to her arrest.
The Bluecoat
Our Own Personal Heroes
How would you feel to have another country steal your heritage, only to house it in their own museums, and rewrite your history?
Artists and cultural organisations in Ukraine are on the frontline of preserving cultural heritage ensuring that when the bombing stops, they are able to rebuild their creative communities. Sitting in the Bluecoat Garden, in the shelter of Liverpool city centre’s oldest building, and the UK’s oldest arts centre, listen to OLEKSANDRA OSADCHA from the Museum of Kharkiv School Of Photography, as she tells how they rescued their archives out of Kharkiv, during intense shelling.
Liverpool Central Library
War of Words
Writing is a form of resistance. Throughout this tour, we include poems and testimony from Ukrainian writers. Here, in Liverpool’s cathedral of the written word, we hear from writer turned war crimes researcher VICTORIA AMELINA who speaks about the murder of famous poet and children’s writer Volodymyr Vakulenko.
Lovelocks Coffee Shop
Our Place in Our City
The battle for equality has not stopped as bombs fall. From candle-lit memorials to cars covered in rainbow streamers, activists have found ways to shout about human rights. Here, at Lovelocks, one of Liverpool’s safe spaces, listen to renowned LGBT+ feminist activist ANNA SHARYHINA who describes the city performance interventions that she has created during the full-scale invasion.
Moorfields Train Station
Concerts Between Explosions
The air raid sirens ring out, as missiles in the sky signal the start of shelling. Many flee to metro stations, congregating underground.
KharkivMusicFest is an international classical musical event. On what would have been the first day of their festival in 2022, their musicians created a concert for the thousands of people living in Kharkiv Metro Station. Listen to JULIA NIKOLAJEVSKA from KharkivMusicFest as she tells of the “concerts between explosions”.
Liverpool Parish Church
Bullet Words and Tank Songs
Russia’s war on Ukraine has transformed the life of every individual in the country. By law, all physically-fit Ukrainian men aged 18-60 are potentially subject to conscription. Leaving their towns, cities and families they travel to Ukraine’s borders to fight. Some like DMYTRO KOSTYUMINSKYI, a theatre and filmmaker, have volunteered to become a soldier on the frontline. He sends us voice messages to speak about his experiences.
@paradefest
@artistsonthefrontline