The exhibition “The Land We Carry” is the culmination of the art and community program of the same name, implemented by the Jam Factory Art Center in the summer of 2025 as part of the international art residency Magic Carpets.
WORK SCHEDULE AND ENTRY CONDITIONS
Opening of the exhibition: 29 November at 16:00
Duration: 29 November 2025 – 11 January 2026
Hours: Mon – closed, Tue–Fri 12:00–20:00, Sat–Sun 11:00–20:00
Admission is free.
The exhibition remains open during power outages.
ABOUT EXHIBITION
“A space where we, like plants,
like seeds,
like clay,
where we “once again return
to what we used to do.”
How do you remember the gardens of your childhood? Or a garden you planted yourself? In our memory they are always in bloom, filled with fruits and berries—the sweetest ones, unlike any others found anywhere else. It seems that those trees and grasses support us across the years: embracing us with their branches, caressing us with their leaves and blades, holding us firmly with their roots.
As a result of the Russian invasion and ongoing hostilities, many of our lands in occupied, de-occupied, and frontline territories remain mined, abandoned, and inaccessible due to danger. Thousands of people forced to leave their homes since 2014 have found ways to cope with loss, in part by “recreating” their home in new places: through gardening that repeats fragments of the past, or through cooking and sharing food as performative acts that return them to earlier times through scents and flavors. Family recipes, seasonal holidays, local dishes—all of these help to reveal the cultural heritage and memory of Ukraine’s regions and national communities.
Working together with three Ukrainian artists—Diana Khalilova, Lilia Petrova, and Iryna Loskot—the participants of “The Land We Carry” rediscovered their relationship with gardening, observing plants, and memory through drawing, movement, storytelling, working with clay, and cooking. The space of such co-creation made it possible to reveal the rich artistic images that lived in our small community’s memory of home and homeland. Something long forgotten would resurface, and what once seemed “unimportant” became meaningful.
It is difficult to imagine celebrating in times of daily tragedies and losses. Yet gathering around a table is not only about light-hearted joy; it is also about mutual support, about grounding oneself in community, about the possibility of “being together.” In the project, we held communal kitchen sessions, where speaking and listening about the difficult and the intimate was just as important as cooking and eating. That is why the table we invite you to at the exhibition is made up of personal stories—happy, painful, diverse, yet ultimately relatable.
We created this exhibition with its visitors in mind, striving to make the space as open to interaction as possible. What matters most here is the time and place for experience—to remember, to feel, to slow down, to observe. We present our practices and approaches to working with individual memory, and we invite you to share your own stories, to be attentive to yourself and to others.
ARTISTS
Diana Khalilova
Lilia Petrova
Ira Loskot
PARTICIPANTS
Anastasiia Sierikova, Andrii Holdaiev, Anna Koshel, Anna Kurnatska, Halyna Vorona, Hanna Varshavska, Daniela Hrytsak, Diana Horban, Yarysia Makiievska, Karina Dovhan, Mariia Krykun, Nadiia Noskova, Olha Kamisarova, Olha Kis, Olha Niestierkova, Sofiia Hrynevych, Yuliia Dudnieva, Yurii Pryima, Yaroslava Katsedan.
Special Thanks:
Lierane Khanum Kurtnebi Kyzy
Bohdan Ostapchuk
JAM FACTORY ART CENTER TEAM
Program Director: Ilona Demchenko
Executive Director: Tetiana Fedoruk
Magic Carpets Project Curator: Olena Kasperovych
Magic Carpets Project Manager: Ira Kliuchnyk
Visual Arts Project Curator: Asia Tsisar
Visual Arts Project Manager: Mariia Buria
Assistant: Vlada Novosad
Operations Manager: Levko Pidzharyi
Installation: Metamuseum, “Euroenergo”
Technical Support: Serhiy Klymets
Event Organizer: Taia Mamchak
Communications: Marta Klub, Lesia Dunets, Iryna Ponchka
Design: Nastei Teor
Receptionists: Anastasiia Vasylenko, Nadiia Saraieva, Oleksandra Tesliuk
Administrative Manager: Anastasiia Mashkevych
Financial Support: Nataliia Terletska, Olha Protsailo, Khrystyna Harasymiak
Art Mediators: Olia Shul, Katia Lohinova, Khrystyna Savitska
Translation: Areta Kovalska
Editing: Iryna Voloshchak
Cleaning: Alla Ovsiuk, Tamara Kovtushenko, Nadiia Seniv, Svitlana Petrova
MAGIC CARPETS
The Jam Factory Art Center implements the exhibition as part of the Magic Carpets platform.
“Magic Carpets” is an international art platform created in 2017 that gives evolving artists and curators an opportunity to start their own “magical trip” by collecting local stories all around Europe and telling them in other countries through their art. The project is co-financed by the EU Program “Creative Europe”.
Jam Factory Art Center became a member of “Magic Carpets” in January 2020.
For further information, visit this page.