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Lesia Dunets, communication manager of Jam Factory Art Center
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JAM FACTORY: A NEW ART CENTER FOR UKRAINE OPENS IN THE MIDST OF WAR

On 18 November 2023, Jam Factory Art Center in Lviv officially opened its doors to the public. Housed in a former industrial building first used as distillery and later as a fruit bottling plant, Jam Factory Art Center will stage exhibitions of modern and contemporary art, as well as host new productions in performative arts and music in a specially designed space.

The idea of establishing a new cultural centre in Lviv took root in 2015, when philanthropist and historian Dr. Harald Binder decided to support the development of Jam Factory Art Center as a center for contemporary art. The initiative also saw an opportunity to regenerate Lviv’s industrial building and its neighborhood into a vibrant public space. After extensive research and preparation, significant funding was provided to go ahead.

Jam Factory Art Center is located in the district of Pidzamche, north of central Lviv, once a thriving industrial area. The building, with its distinctive crenellations and neo-gothic façade, was commissioned by the Jewish entrepreneur Josef Kronik in 1872. It operated as a successful distillery until the Second World War, which the Kronik family, tragically, did not survive. Post war, the factory was importing wines from Moldova and other parts of the USSR until, in 1970, it was converted into a plant for bottling fruit and vegetables. It ceased production in the 1990s. From 2008 the building was used on an ad hoc basis for cultural initiatives such as the Contemporary Art Week, a theatre festival, and other artistic and community engaged activities.

Following the purchase of the buildings in 2015, the Austrian architectural firm of Stefan Rindler was selected to restore and re-model the former building in collaboration with the Ukrainian office AVR. To create a multidisciplinary art centre as a space for critical reflection through culture was the concept from the beginning. Institutions of this kind which would also serve as a point of connection between Ukraine and the wider world are still rare in the country. The structural composition of the complex consisting of six separate buildings reflects these ambitions. Grouped around an open courtyard and an extended alley, Jam Factory Art Center is built as a continuous, flexible space, able to accommodate performance, installation, and discussions. On the larger territory the site of a former synagogue has been marked out, a reminder, rather than an erasure, of Ukraine’s turbulent past.

Looking into the Gaps IV exhibition

The exhibition Looking into the Gaps IV curated by artist Nikita Kadan opens at Jam Factory Art Center.

Looking into the Gaps is an exhibition cycle that approaches the history and present of Ukrainian art as an ornament of ruptures, losses, and absences, in which what exists serves merely as a frame for what is missing.

The cycle consists of separate chapters, previously presented at Voloshyn Gallery in Kyiv (2024); the Artsvit and DCCC spaces in Dnipro (2025); ART FRONT Gallery in Tokyo, Japan (2026); as well as landscape exhibitions in Sokołowsko (Poland), Berlin (Germany), and on the island of Teshima in Japan. The aim of the cycle is to reflect on the process of moving along a conscious path composed largely of obstacles, and on the construction of a coherent narrative that breaks off again and again.

The central motif of the Lviv part of the project, presented at Jam Factory Art Center, is the theme of loneliness and the relationship between the “I” and the “we” as shaped by the experience of war.

“The history of Ukrainian art is a torn history and, at the same time, a history of gaps. Interrupted narratives, destroyed works, repressed authors, loud silence, rewriting the past according to the new dominant ideology, tragedies of conformism and the virtuosity of self-justification, breaking oneself over the knee, changing sides in the middle of an argument, changing names halfway through, dissociative identity. Or martyrdom through self-immolation, followed by turning ashes into bronze. And bronze is known to steal the meaning from ashes every time. Is it possible to wander through a landscape of catastrophe? Are there flâneurs on blood-soaked lands? This exhibition answers in the affirmative,” says Nikita Kadan.

The curator shares that work on the fourth exhibition began with reflections on the fate of the categories of “we” and “I” in wartime. Self-restraint and external restrictions, self-censorship, mutual surveillance — these are the themes from which cracks spread and around which the social fabric tears. During the preparation of the exhibition, the theme of loneliness gradually crystallized in a world where a new normality, entirely permeated by war, has taken shape. These reflections led to a whole range of lonelinesses: from loneliness within a constantly rewritten history to loneliness within a social contract that is continuously betrayed. As well as loneliness between the history of art and the hysteria of artistic life. And, returning to the beginning — about “us,” about that indissoluble residue of unity without which everything will be lost.

Artists:

Andrii Boyko, Andrii Boiarov, Andrii Sahaidakovskyi, Anton Saienko, Attila Hazhlinsky, Bohdan Sokur, Bohdana Kosmina, Vasyl Tkachenko, Vesela Naidenova, Vladyslav Plisetskyi, Volodymyr Vorotnov, Halyna Zhehulska, Davyd Chychkan, Dana Kavelina, Zhanna Kadyrova, Zoriana Kozak, Illia Todurkin, Kateryna Yermоlaieva, Katia Kopieikina, Kseniia Hnylytska, Maiia Nikolaieva, Marharyta Polovinko, Mariia Prymachenko, Marta Syrko, Myroslav Yahoda, Mykhailo Palinchak, Nikita Kadan, Oleh Holosii, Oleh Perkovskyi, Oleksandr Hnylytskyi, Olia Yeriemieieva, Pavlo Bedzir, Pavlo Kovach, Pavlo Makov, Sasha Dolhyi, Sevilia Nariman-Kyzy, Serhii Anufriev, Stanislav Turina, Fedir Tetianych, Yurii Bolsa, Yurii Izdryk, Yurii Leiderman, Yarema Malashchuk and Roman Khimei, Yaroslav Futymskyi.

Heads of the institution

Harald Binder, the founder

Swiss historian, Ph.D. in history and economics from the University of Bern. His research focuses on the history of Central and Eastern Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, Habsburg Galicia, urban history, media, and the public sphere in the transition to modernity. As an entrepreneur and cultural patron, he founded the Center for Urban History (2004), Harald Binder Cultural Enterprises (2015), and the Jam Factory Art Center (2017).

“I was encouraged to follow up on my first initiative, the urban research centre, after I had experienced what potential lies in Ukraine and its people. Just as much as science the arts constitute an important medium of profound reflection for a society, especially in times of war.”

Tetiana Fedoruk, Operations and Executive Director

Tetiana is responsible for the strategic development and implementation of the Center’s business model. She is also responsible for financial and management accounting, operational processes, and team management. Tetiana provided financial support for approximately 100 grant projects as CFO of the Center for Urban History. She holds ACCA Diploma in International Financial Reporting (2021) and Financial Accounting Managerial Decision Making (2022) from DePaul University. She is currently a student on the Key Executive MBA program at the UCU Business School.

Ilona Demchenko, Program Director

Ilona has over 15 years of experience in the culture and art field, implementing influential projects in Ukraine and Europe. She has worked at the Goethe-Institut Ukraine and House of Europe, participated in numerous art initiatives and was the producer of the Ukrainian national pavilion at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale. In 2024, Ilona co-curated the exhibition “Structures of Reciprocity” at Jam Factory Art Center.

Supervisory Board Members

Harald Binder (Chair);

Vasyl Kosiv, head of the Academy of Arts, Lviv;

Olesya Khromeychuk, director of the Ukrainian Institute, London.