Artist Talk: Polina Karpova, Maria Kulikovska and Vova Vorotniov
Artists Polina Karpova, Maria Kulikovska and Vova Vorotniov are participating in the current SWAP residency programme, organised by the British Council in Ukraine in partnership with Liverpool Biennial. Join us at The Royal Standard at the end of the artists’ residency to hear them talk about their practice and time in the UK.
Following the talk, stay for a free screening and in-conversation event with London-based artist and filmmaker Ruaidhri Ryan from 6.30pm, and visit The Trophy Room‘s new exhibition by Alice Chandler open between 6 – 8.30pm.
Polina Karpova (b. 1992, Kharkiv, Ukraine) is an artist working with photography, based in Kharkiv. She is a graduate of the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts in 2013 with MA in Art History. Karpova follows the continuity of the famous Kharkiv school of photography, which brings irony to traditional views on the local environment. She has worked in photography since 2009, focusing on the research of unique human beauty and interaction with industrial city landscapes.
Maria Kulikovska (b. 1988, Kerch, Crimea, Ukraine) is an artist, architect, actionist, and curator. She is a graduate of the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in Kyiv (MA in Architecture, 2013) and the Royal Institute of Fine Arts in Stockholm (2016). In her arduous performances Kulikovska explores not only her body’s limits and fragility but also women’s bodies in public space. Her work is also influenced by the political situation in Ukraine, where she addresses the conflict with Russia, the annexation of her homeland Crimea, and the problems of displaced persons in Ukraine.
Vova Vorotniov (b. 1979, Chervonohrad, Ukraine) is an artist based in Kyiv. His background is in graffiti subculture and ars humanitas studies in the Philosophy Department at the National University Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Vorotniov works with photography, installation, public art and performance. His fields of interest range from identity issues in modern day Ukraine and the so-called decommunisation processes to the (mis)function of the Soviet public space, flâneur and psycho-geography practices, and the re-use of local folk art museums in a contemporary context.