As part of the public program accompanying the exhibition “Looking into the Gaps IV,” Jam Factory Art Center launches a series of public interviews titled: “What Does It Mean to Be a Ukrainian Artist? What Does It Mean to Be a Ukrainian Woman Artist?”. We aim to explore these questions not as abstractions, but through live conversations and the lived experiences of people we identify in this way.
The first conversation will be with Yuri Leiderman — an artist and writer, author of the essay “Those Who Wandered Along the Surf,” which Nikita Kadan references in the exhibition.
The focus will be on the Odesa art scene of the 1980s, the complex relationships between Moscow and Odesa conceptualism, and the differences between them.
Unlike Russian art, which tends to gravitate toward a center, Ukraine, according to Leiderman, is a space of horizontal, non-hierarchical connections, where a center never fully formed — and perhaps was never needed.
Interviewer: Asia Tsisar
Event Details
Date: March 29, 2026, 17:00
Location: Jam Factory Art Center
(124 Bohdana Khmelnytskoho St., Upper Exhibition Hall)
Admission: Free with registration. Limited capacity.
Yuri Leiderman is an artist and writer. He was born in 1963 in Odesa. Since the early 1980s, he has participated in exhibitions of unofficial art in Odesa and Moscow. In the 1980s–90s, he lived in Moscow and was part of the circle of so-called Moscow Conceptualism. Since 2004, he has lived in Germany. He has taken part in numerous solo and group exhibitions of contemporary art and is the author of several books of essays and diary prose. He was also a member of the editorial board of the online journal PROSTORY.
Asia Tsisar is a Ukrainian curator, writer, and researcher specializing in Central and Eastern Europe. From 2020 to 2022, she was the chief curator of the Secondary Archive project. Projects curated by her have been presented at Manifesta 14, the 14th Gwangju Biennale, EVA International (Ireland’s Biennial), Mystetskyi Arsenal, and CZKD. After returning to Ukraine, she created the podcast Radio Unheard, dedicated to ethical dilemmas at the intersection of art and politics. She is currently the curator of the visual art department at Jam Factory Art Center.