Join the Community Art Project “The Land We Carry”!
We invite everyone to take part in “The Land We Carry” — a community art project that will explore gardening and cooking as powerful cultural and social practices.
Together with three artists — Diana Khalilova, Iryna Loskot, and Lilia Petrova — we will rediscover the meaning and warmth these practices can bring into our lives. What makes gardening or cooking feel so comforting and grounding? Can they momentarily transport us to a place of safety and give us a sense of home?
This project creates space for your personal stories — about gardens of your childhood, favorite plants, or ones that remind you of familiar plains or forest landscapes. What plant care practices were passed down in your family, and which ones have you developed on your own, as a way to find peace, strength, or creative expression?
Cooking and gathering at the table with loved ones helps us get through difficult times. It’s not always about food — it’s about being together, representing our cultures and traditions, and rituals that make us feel strong.
Do you have a favorite family recipe? What do you remember about cooking together at home?
This project is for everyone who wants to share their story, listen to others’ stories, and learn more about the cultural and natural diversity within our country.
During the sessions with the artists, we’ll draw, work with clay, move, and talk about plants and gardens. We will create collaborative artworks, cook together, share recipes, and learn how to tell our stories through art practices.
Apply to the community art project “The Land We Carry” by June 28, 2025!
PROGRAM SCHEDULE
Duration: July 2 – August 9 (10), 2025
Location: Jam Factory Art Center, 124 Bohdana Khmelnytskoho St, Lviv (AIR Space)
Sessions:
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Wednesdays — 17:00–20:30
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Saturdays — 12:00–16:00
Total: 10 sessions planned
WHO CAN PARTICIPATE?
You’re welcome to apply if you’re over 18 and currently living in Lviv.
No previous experience or special skills are required, but a will to engage in gardening, cooking, and openness to group interaction are important.
The program is built around a sequence of interconnected sessions, where each session builds on the previous one. That’s why we encourage participants to attend as many sessions as possible.
By submitting your application, you confirm your intention to participate according to the schedule.
Please note: the number of participants is limited.
BACKGROUND
This year’s Magic Carpets project at Jam Factory Art Center focuses on two key communal and cultural practices — gardening and cooking — at the intersection with artistic expression.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has resulted in vast areas of lost, abandoned, and mine-filled land across occupied, de-occupied, and frontline territories. Since 2014, thousands of people displaced from their homes have found ways to cope with their loss by “re-creating” their sense of home in new places — through gardening, which helps build familiar environments in new living situations, and through cooking and sharing food, as performative acts that evoke memory through taste and aroma.
Family recipes, seasonal holidays, and local dishes became the ways of preserving and sharing cultural heritage and memory from different regions and national communities within Ukraine.
The invited artists will work with participants’ stories using various art media in a space of trust and safety.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
The Land We Carry is a community art program centered around gardening and cooking as cultural practices that offer support and reinforce community resilience during times of everyday loss and tragedy.
Together, we’ll work with media such as drawing, ceramics, performative practices, and storytelling.
WHAT IS A “COMMUNITY ART PROGRAM”?
It’s a creative interaction — through art or mixed media practices — within a group of artists and participants, whether they are previously acquainted or not. Through this process, all participants become co-authors of a shared experience: of being together, playing, moving, creating sound or form, and making a collective artwork. The process will allow personal expression.
WHEN WILL I FIND OUT IF I’VE BEEN SELECTED?
The application deadline is June 28, 2025, at 11:59 PM.
You will receive an email with the results on June 30, 2025, sent to the email address you provided in the application form.
Be sure to check your Spam folder as well.
RESIDENTS
Diana Khalilova is an artist born in Dagestan who spent most of her youth in Dnipro. She graduated from the National University of Food Technologies in Kyiv and worked as a cook in various establishments across Kyiv, Dnipro, and Odesa. In 2020, she began her art practice, working primarily with clay, video, food, and other media. Part of her work explores themes of ethnic identity, particularly Rutul culture and language, to which her family belongs. Since 2022, she has led the Community Kitchen program at the Center for Contemporary Culture in Dnipro — a project combining collective cooking sessions with conversations about food as an essential part of culture and memory. Between 2022 and 2025, she participated in group exhibitions in Ukraine and Romania.
Iryna Loskot is a multidisciplinary artist from Kharkiv. She graduated from the Kharkiv National University of Arts named after I. Kotliarevsky with a degree in puppet theater acting. She currently lives in Kyiv and works with objects, video, and performance. Her art practice explores interactions between humans and non-humans, as well as their political entanglements. Her approach includes revealing non-human agency, adapting environments, the militarization of “nature,” and the naturalization of war. She challenges anthropocentric perspectives through imagery that blurs the boundaries between human and non-human experiences.
Lilia Petrova is an artist from Kharkiv. She graduated from the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts with a degree in Book Arts. She works with both drawing and ceramics. Through drawing, she explores the interaction between verbal and visual languages, creating a unique graphic universe populated by naive creatures navigating absurd or challenging life circumstances. In her ceramic work, she draws inspiration from folk art practices, appreciating their sincerity and directness. She is engaged in alternative art education and teaches the course “Drawing and Sculpture” at the Kharkiv School of Architecture. Lilia sees art as an accessible supporting tool — a space for reflection, experience, and communication.
Project Curator: Olena Kasperovych
Project Manager: Iryna Kliuchnyk
The program is implemented by Jam Factory Art Center within the framework of the Magic Carpets artist residency.