#0 HOW WE STAY TOGETHER. HOW TO LISTEN TO THIS PODCAST // YEVHENIIA NESTEROVYCH AND ANNA GAIDAI

[00:00:04] – [00:00:25]. Ye. N.: Hello everyone. This is “How We Stay Together” podcast – conversations about participatory practices in art. I’m, the podcast host, Yevheniia Nestorovych. Today, in our zero episode, I will be with Anna Gaidai, curator of artistic and community residencies at the Jam Factory Art Center. Hi, Ania.
[00:00:26] – [00:00:27]. A. G: Hello, Zhenia.
[00:00:27] – [00:01:06]. Ye. N: Today we will try to think through all the topics and conversations that we had for almost half a year as part of working on this podcast. And we will try to make an easy instruction for you “How to listen to this podcast”. Let’s start with the very first and probably most important. The Jam Factory Art Center initiated this podcast. So let’s talk a little about what kind of institution it is and why artistic community-oriented practices are so important for the Jam Factory in Lviv.
[00:01:12] – [00:02:09]. A. G.: Let’s start. Jam Factory Art Center is a contemporary art institution in Pidzamche that has already fully opened after establishment and revitalization [the art center has been operating since 2017, and as a physically revitalized space it has been fully available since the fall of 2023]. And she works with the challenges of our time and rethinks them. It also takes a critical position concerning global and local processes in society — and thus strengthens and develops it. The Art Center deals with exhibitions, theater and music events, and educational programs. And community-oriented projects. So we engage people in dialogue and enrich our and their experience and knowledge.
[00:02:10] – [00:02:34]. Ye. N: The Jam Factory participates and embodies Magic Carpets residences. What had become the reason for the appearance of these residences? What are Magic Carpets? And what other residences, apart from the last one last year [in 2023], were within the scope of this project at the Jam Factory?
[00:02:35] – [00:03:46]. A. G.: Yes, starting from the beginning: when we talk about Magic Carpets, we always present it as an international platform that has connected 21 cultural organizations in Europe at different times. Currently, 15 organizations are active members of this platform. Magic Carpets creates opportunities for emerging artists and emerging curators. Through travels and exchanges, artists and curators have the opportunity to meet, work with local communities, collect local stories, reinterpret, transform them through art, and then tell them to the whole world. Very often, local and foreign artists collaborate on such projects. And they work and are active in socially oriented areas of art and through the practices of involvement and participation interact with local communities and representatives of various groups.
[00:03:47] – [00:03:54]. Ye.N.: Tell us more about this last residence – in 2023 – from which the idea of ​​this podcast was born.
[00:03:56] – [00:08:03]. A.G.: If we talk about the 2023 residency “Unpacking the Sound”, this project worked with the topic of sound, how we can discover sound in ourselves, in others, how we can find our own true sound, voice and sing certain things. And also use not only your own sound but also musical instruments or anything that creates sound. In this project, we could work with sound individually, but also create joint interactions with sound and movement. We invited artists to participate in the project. These were artists from different regions of Ukraine. We were joined by Anastasiia Voitiuk from Lviv, who is engaged in Ukrainian traditional singing, researching Ukrainian folk songs, and promoting bandura. Vira Ibriamova-Syvoraksha, host of the “Singing Workshop” in Chernihiv was with us. She has knowledge and practical experience in applying the Orff approach, which is making music with people who do not have a special musical education. In addition, the group “Ateliernormalno” from Kyiv, artists with and without Down syndrome, represented by Stanislav Turina, Anna Sapon and Oleksandr Steshenko, joined. We were all together in a unique multidisciplinary process and within the framework of the topic “Unpacking the Sound”, each of us worked using our background, our skills and our philosophy with the topic of how to see, feel and manifest sound. I think that during this residency, or rather as soon as we finished it, there was a sense that there was so much that wanted to be discussed, and so many questions arose in the process: about participatory practices, about what words we mean by what doing, how do we generally talk about the process rather than the outcome in these community-based art projects, which is important, what we agree on. And yes, it seems to me that the artists and I have already planned that we will continue to talk. But in the end, in conversations with Zhenia [Nesterovych], the idea of ​​a podcast format arose, and we began to record conversations between residents of Magic Carpets, who joined in different years and who have a practical common experience with the Jam Factory Art Center. That is, we have certain topics with which we have worked and which we would like to negotiate, talk about, understand and mark the dictionary of this direction. And also to share the experience of previous projects and activities. Therefore, this podcast became a logical continuation of the Unpacking the Sound residency and how we unpacked it, as an audio version of our conversations.
[00:08:12] – [00:10:06]. Ye. N: It should also be noted that, actually, during the “Unpacking the Sound” residency, our partners Sebto Media created this unique soundtrack, which you will hear in the whole series of conversations “How We Stay Together”. These are the sounds that were created by the participants of the residency in the process of unpacking sound. There will be vocals, instruments. And this is a major part of the whole process. Also, I think it’s important to explain that this is an open story; we do not consider these six episodes, which were made over six months, to be exhaustive. The team plans to continue to accumulate this knowledge in the format of such podcasts or articles, or in some other way. To involve and encourage young artists, artists who have not yet tried themselves in this genre, to engage in participatory practices. This podcast was created for such interested people. Therefore, even if you have not heard anything about participatory art, this is a great opportunity to learn about it – from those who already have experience in this field.
And I invite you, Ania, to talk a little about our interlocutors, who can be heard in this podcast, and about the topics that we managed to cover in these episodes. (Ania was our silent listener in most conversations. And in one, she was a full-fledged interlocutor).
[00:10:07] – [00:12:21]. A.G.: In fact, we listened through these six episodes several times after the recording — and every time I discovered new things for myself. That is, even though they have already been said and listened to, there are somehow many layers to go through. I probably won’t be able to list everything. And that’s probably a good thing: you will have the opportunity to listen and be interested in those episodes in the playlist. For now, I will say that we recorded the first conversation with Vira Ibriamova-Syvoraksha, a participant in the “Unpacking the Sound” residency, and also with Yaryna Shumska, who also often works with groups of people and communities. And she was nominated by the Jam Factory for a residency at Magic Carpets’ partners in Italy – Latitudo Art Projects, an organization in Rome where she had a good experience working with the community on the outskirts of the city. So, in the conversation, these two speakers shared their experiences, which are valuable when working with the community, how to build trust, how to pay attention to the dynamics in the group, and what the duration of such processes and projects can be. And also how in general you can talk about what we do, and what we feel very well, being in the circle, in the process, and what cannot be seen, but can be felt when you are a participant. So this podcast is about certain invisible things that, nevertheless, greatly affect and transform us and the people who get involved – and that’s why they matter.
[00:12:21] – [00:13:18]. Ye. N: I will make a small remark here: in the process of working on this podcast, another idea was born, which was realized in it – the creation of a kind of vocabulary of participatory artistic practices. In the course of the conversations, we tried to capture, to capture the important terms used in this genre, which are used by artists working with participatory practices, how they contrast with previously used terms, how the language used by practitioners is changing. And they tried to formulate it for the listeners with shorter, concentrated definitions to form such a vocabulary of participatory art for practitioners of this field. You can hear these terms at the end of each episode.
[00:13:19] – [00:18:53]. A. G: Thank you, Zhenia. This is actually a work that, I think, cannot be exhaustive either. After all, every time we work with the same terms, they can transform according to where we work, with what group of people, at what time. And this is also very important: it is a changing vocabulary for the time when we write it down. In the years of a full-scale invasion, it has one context, but maybe in a few years it will change, and we can revise it, rethink it, rewrite it and reformulate it.
And I will say more about our other speakers. It should be noted that when we were thinking about how, in what conversations, who we could meet for these discussions, for the podcast, it was also an interesting job to construct these conversations and find common ground for artists. It is similar to how these residences are built: who can talk, with whom, about what, whether there will be a dialogue, whether there will be complete agreement, whether there will be something to discuss. And in fact, it was part of the preparatory work for Zhenia and me. We offered it to the artists – everyone agreed to talk. Some of them had not met before, so the podcast became a certain extension of acquaintance for them.
Our next conversation took place between Stanislav Turina and Yurii Kruchak. They were also the resident Magic Carpets at the Jam Factory. Yurii Kruchak cooperates with Yulia Kosterieva, the representative of the Open Place organization. Both Yulia and Yura joined us at the “How We Stay Together” residency in 2022 but were also residents of another program that took place at Magic Carpets in Innsbruck, Austria. There, their project included workshops with the local community, a summer school. Their work with the community in Lviv continued in a certain way in Innsbruck. And so the project with which they worked was named “Common Landscape”; they were working with creating ponchos. The conversation between Stas and Yurii outlined a lot of points related to historical prerequisites: why these participatory practices have become popular now and there is a demand for them, why it became possible in Ukraine, when and how it was formed, why artists are the ones who conduct such practice and why it is considered art. The episode is worth listening to for anyone interested in the process that preceded [today], but also in what is happening now, how these practices might be developing in the future. I invite you to listen!
Our third conversation is between Yulia Kosterieva, whom I just mentioned, and me. We talked more about how participatory practices develop in institutions or how institutions are created to develop such practices. Actually, if we talk about “Open Place”, then they decided to create an institution to legitimize these practices in a certain way and to indicate that they are here for a long time. In our case — at the Jam Factory Art Center — we have had such practices since 2017. I’ll tell you a little later how we went about the way we work with communities and art. And in my opinion, now we understand better where to go next. If before it was a process of contemplation and trials, now there is already a more conscious structured vision for the coming years. And in our organization, there is a good trend that the participatory practices are in the programs of other departments, such as theater, education, the How We Stay Together department, or art-oriented programs. Therefore, I can say that even in the example of the Factory, we can see how these practices are being popularized and how the cooperation of organizations with local communities, with the communities of the entire city, but also Pidzamche, the district where we are located, is becoming more active.
[00:19:04] – [00:19:55]. Ye. N: The name of our podcast is the name of a whole branch of your activity, and here I think it is a good moment to talk about what else the Jam Factory has been doing in the framework of the “How We Stay Together” direction and what it may be planning to do next. Because we, talking about local communities, understand that now, during a full-scale invasion, they have changed a lot. And we mention this in conversations with our interlocutors: how the crazy, rapid change in the social situation has changed the situation for artists who practice direct work with people.
[00:19:56] – [00:28:30]. A. G: Yes, that is a very good question. Indeed, “How We Stay Together” became the name for a whole line of work. It begins in 2022, when a full-scale russian invasion of Ukraine has already taken place, and we – both the team of curators and artists – faced the question of how to work in the new reality, how to rethink what we did before, which is now the most relevant. Then we developed the program together with the co-curators, with the artists Yurii Kruchak, Yulia Kosterieva, whom you have already heard about today, as well as with Nina Khyzhna, choreographer and dramaturg, and Iryna Garyts, also a theater curator and playwright, and the curator of the Jam Factory Art Center Liuba Ilnytska. Experts from other fields were also invited: sociology, psychology, literature, and oral history. So we tried to give a name to what we felt. After spending some time in discussions, we concluded that it is difficult to formulate, but we want to understand how we stay together, how we are now together in all this – from there we took this name and continued to work with it.
It also seems to me that at that time it was very important for the team to somehow record and document what we were doing, what kind of methodology it was. And we began to fixate it, having developed a document at the beginning, which indicated the points we wanted to work with, what we wanted to change for the better, where we were going in this process of residency with the community, what we actually invite people to join our practices for, to joint practices. And then, after the residency, we conducted an analysis: what was successful and what was not. After conducting a series of conversations, interviews, collecting feedback from participants, the community, we organized a book – a methodology, also called “How We Stay Together” and which tries to explain how you can create an art project together with artists, experts, a team and a community that it requires consistency and knowledge. This book is already printed. It will also be available online. And if anyone is interested, you can find a link to the form on the Jam Factory website and order this book for free. Actually, we have already talked about the podcast: it is also called “How We Stay Together”, it continues the idea and theme of how we can be temporarily or permanently together and what we can use for this. The residencies, which we mentioned a little earlier and which, since I have been working at the institution since 2020, take place within and with the support of the Magic Carpets platform, are also part of the “How We Stay Together” branch. In addition, during these residencies, we try, thanks to art critics, to describe the process of working with the community through artistic participatory practices in the artistic plane — to understand what we create, how it can be presented, what is valuable, what questions are raised, what changes occur in the process work with artists and the community. So there is already a certain number of documents and publications created during our residencies, which will be collected and presented in the “How We Stay Together” section on the Jam Factory’s resources. In addition, we make videos that can tell a lot about what happened during the residency – from the first persons, the first actors, the artists, the curators, the community. This is a short video format, but very comprehensive and conveys well the atmosphere in which we worked, the feedback and the feelings of everyone involved.
During the residency, we also held workshops with those artists who participated in it. We started in 2020 with the artist Jacopo Natoli from Italy, who gave more, perhaps, the theoretical part and understanding of what participatory practices are and how to involve communities. At the Jam Factory we try to record such meetings, we have video recordings. Then it was a two-day workshop and participants from different cities joined. Last year, during the “Unpacking the Sound” residency, we organized another more practical workshop. And the residents — artists Yurii Kruchak, Yulia Kosterieva, Anastasiia Voitiuk and Vira Ibriamova-Syvoraksha — conducted practices with those who already work a little in this community direction, involved communities and want to learn more about it. So we had anthropologists, artists, curators and cultural managers with us. It helped us spread the knowledge from artists, those who received something during the residency or earlier, to those who want to be more actively involved in this direction.
Perhaps I would also add that based on the results of each residency, we – myself or with co-curators – create curatorial texts aimed at explaining the purpose of working with the community in this project: what was going on, how, who was involved, who were those artists, what processes took place, was the result material or something else. And these are also important materials — as documentation of our practices, work, and as a popularization of participatory practices. And, it seems to me, a valuable aspect of these texts is the testimony of artists who work in the direction of artistic and community projects. Such texts are available on the Magic Carpets website, not only for our organization but also for all European organizations that are members of this platform. So it’s also a very cool resource to learn from other countries and communities. So please use it!
[00:28:31] – [00:30:43]. Ye. N: Yes, it must be said that artists who practice participatory artistic practices tend to be a bit nomadic: they often work with different local communities in different parts of the world and different cities in Ukraine. Therefore, most of our conversations took place in a semi-remote or fully remote format. If you notice problems with the sound, then know that it was Zoom audio. And we tried to have these conversations, despite all the circumstances, which often contradicted the opportunity to meet and talk. Well, and the most surprising thing, probably, is that as a result, this cycle of conversations turned out to be so complete that I would not call it a podcast “How We Stay Together”, but an audio course “The basics of participatory art”. I really hope that it will continue and expand because in fact most of the topics have a huge potential to be developed further. And, I think, it will be interesting not only to those who would like to practice in this genre, but also to those who are generally currently studying Ukrainian culture and, maybe, even the wider Ukrainian society. Because the team and artists and curators, who worked within the residencies, the “How We Stay Together” direction, had a very deep experience of living in difficult situations directly with people and through creative practices could see and notice something that the sociological research or that cannot be seen by simply observing from the side. Well, here is probably a good place to mention the team, the people who work in this direction at the Jam Factory – not only the curators but also everyone in general. Because this is a common cause if we are talking about participatory practices.
[00:30:44] – [00:38:30]. A. G: That is true. And at the Jam Factory Art Center, the team is involved very closely, very actively. When we started in 2020, we at the Factory were a smaller team. But the team is growing, and over the years people have joined and helped make our projects the way they are. I think I would like to name these people and thank them. In the first year of Magic Carpets, in 2020, we collaborated with Nataliia Parshchyk, the coordinator of artistic residencies, as well as with a large group of volunteers. All of them are very many – and now I will not shout out all of them, but at least I will try to remember those who joined, perhaps most often. Violetta Pedorych cooperated with us in various roles: as a volunteer, as a coordinator of communication work, and as a mediator of the exhibition. Artists from different countries and cities were with us that year. These are Iryna Ruzina from Kyiv, Serhii Petliuk from Lviv, and two more Italian artists, both from Rome – Jacopo Natoli and Guendalina Salini. In 2021, they worked with invited artists from various fields of work. These are Tereza Barabash from Lviv, as well as Sarah Renard [a sound artist, composer and performer from Zagreb]. Together with them, we created the project “Following the Memories of Pidzamche”, which tells more in audio form, how you can navigate around the area, and what places are there. This project was based on the voices of the community, on the archive of interviews that the Jam Factory recorded even earlier, in 2018, within the framework of the “Tell the Story” project. These were conversations with older people who worked at Pidzamche factories during the Soviet occupation when this area was transformed into an industrial one. They shared how they lived, what was important, what the working conditions were, what they were interested in outside of work. It turned out to be such a long project.
But I missed that in 2020 we worked with the teenagers of Pidzamche, focusing on introducing them to the infrastructure of the district and what they can do there, how they can go out into public space, declare themselves in it, not be intimidated by it. This project was called “I’m where I feel good.”
And in 2022, in response to how we can continue to work during the war, we implemented the project “How We Stay Together”. And it was a very interesting period of cooperation in the Factory team because we worked as a group of female curators. Lyiba Ilnytska and I mainly developed the concept and Bozhena Pelenska also joined in. We interacted with invited artists. Then we were joined by Nina Khyzhna and Iryna Garets, Yurii Kruchak and Yulia Kostyrieva, and many other experts. We tried to find answers to questions in the fields of sociology, oral history, and literature: how one can experience and record the experience of war, how one can talk about it and ask questions. And that’s why we consulted a lot with experts. We also involve psychologists in our projects: the team needs to be a little more prepared in the area where we work with groups of people with whom we may not have met before, and where we have little knowledge. In 2022, we were also joined by Rostyslav Kuzyk, a poet who collaborated with a group of parents and children. Together they created a joint poem. It was an interesting experience of working and creating together. In 2023, our residence grew — and had not only meetings with the community but also open events in which everyone in Lviv could participate. These were practices of working with sound, voice, let’s say, in an easier, more familiar form. These meetings allowed an additional 50 people to join, in addition to the stable group of 15 who agreed to participate in the residency and be regular. And that year we collaborated with Yelena Subach, who continues to be the manager of the Magic Carpets project.
There are also our colleagues from the communication department, who constantly accompany projects and talk about them in various formats, such as Marichka Shvets and Yuliana Chorna. Earlier, Magic Carpets manager Sofiia Korotkevych, who is also an artist, joined us. Our team always has a photographer and a videographer. Photographer Anastasiia Ivanova. But other photographers document these important moments in which we are together. Videographer Nazar Parkhomyk. And last year, Zhenia Nesterovych spent a lot of time with us, at some point became a participant in these practices and very well felt the effect of everything that was happening, and certain transformations, I hope, too.
[00:38:31] – [00:39:50]. Ye. N.: Yes, yes. It was so very revealing, to understand that in this genre there always remains (as, in the end, in others, but in this one especially) a lot of things that can only be felt and lived together, and not retold or watched on video, or somehow still to pass This experience of being together directly is very important and in this sense, of course, it is uniquely transformative. And made me even more interested in this field.
If you’ve already mentioned everyone you wanted, it’s time to make the final gesture of this teaser – and answer the question and at the same time hook up our listeners on why should they listen to this series of conversations “How We Stay Together”/
[00:39:51] – [00:43:30]. A. G: It will be interesting to listen to all, first of all, artists who are in search of new forms for their practices, who are rethinking the significance, effectiveness, and direct effect of their practices. I think in times of full-scale invasion, participatory practices, and community work, are a direct action tool and also a horizontal system of connections that, when we are open, is very, very enriching. And therefore, in my opinion, it will be interesting for artists first of all. This podcast is also worth listening to for everyone who works with people in general, because such important things as trust, openness, cooperation, how to listen, share, and learn, enable a new format of acquiring knowledge, and interaction with the absence or minimal presence of hierarchies. This is, perhaps, the direction in which education will move further. I want to hope that such forms have a good effect and also, perhaps, fill one’s treasury of self-help techniques. After all, there is a lot of self-healing in such practices, when we understand ourselves more, we understand others more. And actual practices with artists, participatory practices give the eyes keys that reveal themselves and others. And this podcast is a good documentation of experiences during war, experiences of displacement and experiences of different perspectives: how we can hear other opinions, how we can continue to be in a shared space, how we can build safe moments, how we can negotiate and move forward in such a strong society which has critical knowledge and critical opinion. Therefore, it is also an understanding of others and oneself in this time in Ukraine. The podcast is worth listening to for those who are engaged in sociology, anthropology, history, psychology because these fields are also oriented towards people, processes, and changes. This is what immediately came to mind. However, it seems to me that everyone open to new experiences, knowledge and encounters can find many different layers in these podcasts. Therefore, I would not limit myself to only those whom I named.
[00:43:30] – [00:46:28]. Ye. N: I can add that this podcast will be interesting for those who work in the area of communication, because it involves a good understanding of their audience, in particular through the experience of curators in participatory practices, who know deeply and see much wider changes audience, cultural events and in general the entire information space, which is currently developing very quickly. And I would also like to think that the direct audience of this series of talks will be students of all art universities and humanitarian fields because our interlocutors during these conversations threw out a lot of interesting theses and ideas regarding the current changes in our society, perception and culture. And these are the topics that are interesting to think about further – either alone or in a discussion with your colleagues, teachers and friends. Therefore, I encourage and advise you to listen to the podcast “How We Stay Together” and share it.
This episode zero is just a teaser. And you have six interesting conversations ahead of you. You can listen to them in order. Each conversation was so intense and long that we sparingly divided them into shorter fragments, and you have two series with each pair of interlocutors. Each of the series has a glossary that you can copy and have a condensed terminology, discussed within the episode. They somehow echo each other, because the interlocutors refer to their colleagues, and we also tried to pick up these “hooks” in the process of formulating theses, questions and topics for discussion. But if you listen to them in random order, as you are interested, it will not spoil the impression. I think you can “jump” depending on topics and descriptions; choose for yourself what you like and what interests you the most. Share these notes with those who may need them. We welcome your comments and feedback. And we will plan and think about the continuation of these conversations in 2024. Thank you.
[00:46:29] – [00:46:50]. A. G.: I will briefly add that on the website jamfactory.ua you will find more information about the projects implemented by the Jam Factory. In addition, about the direction “How We Stay Together” and about the collected knowledge that is already available in this direction. Thank you!