#3 HOW WE STAY TOGETHER. WHY PARTICIPATIVE PRACTICES ARE AN ART FORM // YURII KRUCHAK, STANISLAV TURINA, YEVHENIIA NESTEROVYCH

[00:00:04] – [00:01:09]. Anton Tkachuk: Welcome to the podcast “How We Stay Together”. Here we talk about participatory practices in art. Now they have acquired a new meaning — and help build civil society. In a series of episodes, moderator and host Yevheniia Nesterovych, together with artists, understand what participatory practices are, and the challenges facing those who want to work with the involvement of communities. And they also define the terminology used by practitioners in this field. The team of the Jam Factory Art Center shares knowledge that will help encourage artists to use a participatory approach.
In this episode, we will consider why participatory practices are art, why they have become relevant in recent decades and what is the artist’s self-realization in these practices. Interlocutors are Yurii Kruchak and Stanislav Turina, moderator Yevheniia Nesterovych.
[00:01:17] – [00:01:43]. Ye. N.: Good afternoon! Magic Сarpets residents Yurii Kruchak and Stanislav Turina are with us today.
My name is Yevheniya Nesterovych. This is the “How We Are Together” podcast. And I suggest to start by introducing our guests. Mr. Yuri, please tell us about yourself and how did participatory art began for you.
[00:01:44] – [00:02:23]. Yu. K.: My name is Yurii. I am an artist, but also a curator and co-founder of the platform of interdisciplinary practices Open Place, or “Vidkrytyi Prostir” in Ukrainian. For me, participatory practices began sometime in the early 2000s. And I came to them through socially engaged art. At that time, I was mostly based in Kharkiv and was close to those artists and photographers now known as the Kharkiv School of Photography.
[00:02:24] – [00:02:37]. Ye. N.: Thank you. “Socially engaged art” was said here – and I would remember this term for further conversation.
Stas Turina. Please tell me two words about yourself.
[00:02:38] – [00:03:34]. S. T. Good day to all. This is Stanislav Turina or Stas Turina. I am also an artist and graduated from the Lviv Academy of Arts. For me, the practices of collaboration, participatory art or joint activities also began in the early 2000s, back in school. Later, my colleagues, students of the academy, and I worked together a lot on the topic of street art or, as my colleagues sometimes say, post-graffiti. These movements led me to the co-founding of an apartment gallery in Lviv, Detenpyla, later – “Open Group”. And in 2018, my friends and colleagues and I founded the workshop “Ateljernormalno” in Kyiv, where artists with and without Down syndrome work side by side.
[00:03:34] – [00:04:01]. Ye. N.: Thank you. We will begin our discussion and definition—for it seems to me that this is a conversation about defining a field—with the broadest question: Why participatory art practices are art? How do you think they could be defined?
[00:04:01] – [00:05:50]. S. T.: The view of participatory artistic practices differs significantly both in historical perspective and in collectives and communities engaged in it. After all, the limit or difference of joint practice and how to call it is uncertain, and the understanding and vision of what joint work is, or work in general, the result of work, the work process, and authorship, are different for many people. Participatory art is art because the people in it are actually creating art. And as I understand it, the question in our conversation will, perhaps, be why the process itself is art. It’s one thing when artists gather to make a joint project, joint work, another — when a wide group of people from different professions or with different experiences, people who have or have no relationship with art. And the process itself is often considered, if not as a work of art, then as art. Participatory art is art for me, because in practices (to which we often turned in the “Open Group”), sometimes the process itself, the path of finding consensus or some solutions or simply laboratory research is more important than the result. I’ll probably end there. And I will ask Yurii: what do you think about the process?
[00:05:50] – [00:07:45]. Yu.K.: On the one hand, the question is very complicated, on the other hand, it is quite simple. Here, perhaps, it is necessary to analyze different models and paradigms – more or less familiar to us art and participatory then it will be possible to understand the fundamental differences and the similarities. For me, ordinary forms of art are to a certain extent the knowledge of the world and the manifestation of some things that we do not know. This is the main function of art — the definition of what we have not yet fully understood. And usually, in this paradigm, the artist is the one who knows. If we talk about participatory art, then this process is open, and not only the artist joins it, but also those for whom or with whom this art is created. Indeed, this is where both the similarity and the differences lie. Again, in a more stable model of art, there is a clear separation of the elements of the paradigm: there is an artist or, let’s say, an actor of creative activity, there is an artistic product, a subject, an object, and there is an audience to whom this work is addressed, roughly speaking – the addressee. In participatory art, there is a direct interaction between these three main elements. Therefore, the process, the impulse can come from the artist (he can be called a mediator in this situation), and the very final form of the event or art object is formed in interaction and cognition. There’s that.
[00:07:57] – [00:08:53]. Ye. N: This is a very good bridge to this cognition, to the process of cognition, which is always procedural and never feels completely completed. And Stas also mentioned this procedure. In a previous conversation with Yaryna [Shumska] and Vira [Ibryimova-Sivoraksha], we also talked about proceduralism as one of the most important features and qualitative differences of the participatory approach. But it appears in artistic practices, in the history of art even earlier. How do you maintain the pedigree and history of the emergence of these [participatory] practices? And why exactly in the last few decades have they gained such importance? Why are you interested in working in this way now?
[00:08:54] – [00:10:05]. Yu.K.: I connect it primarily with changes in society. In my opinion, the artistic and creative process is very closely intertwined with social processes. And for me, it starts somewhere in the first half of the 2000s, and the requests and manifestations, let’s say, markers, indicators that society is changing, appeared and were clearly outlined in the mid-2000s — and since then it has only gained [prominence]. Society changed, and thus the art itself began to change, if not all, then at least some part of it, because political transformations and changes in the social system took place. This contributed to the need to review the methods and practices of work in art. But, again, the appearance of these phenomena, social changes, does not cancel the classical, academic and common forms of art.
[00:10:11] – [00:10:35]. Ye. N: About the Ukrainian 2000s, which changed a lot, and social changes: what are these changes, what exactly are we talking about? Here, it seems to me, this subtle connection of the artistic form — not the thematic, but the formal side of artistic practices — with political and social transformations in society is very important.
[00:10:35] – [00:13:56]. Yu. K.: Political changes led to changes in society — and the audience became more demanding and engaged; simply taking the position of an observer or contemplating some processes — did not suit one. The activation of society is a change in certain attitudes and openness of people to the world. That is, people began to ask the question “Why exactly?”; the level of criticism or a critical view of art began to rise. And the artists themselves thought about how to change practices and become more open. It looked like this to me. And it was the Orange Revolution that gave a certain impetus to attention to public spaces, to how we preserve the historical parts of cities and how we — society — can take care of these public spaces and protect them. That is, the issue of public space began to be raised. And because of this wave of intensification of attention to public spaces, society itself began to get more deeply involved in political processes. And already during the Revolution of Dignity, society was perhaps even more prepared for such radical changes than the artistic environment (although this environment itself prepared certain processes or created prerequisites, but it was probably not ready for radical changes). Practices based on theatrical approaches, such as the Theater of the Oppressed, have already begun to appear on the Maidan itself; I remember that quite a few people joined the Maidan there. And it was not only Kyiv; I know that Yanovskyi, a theater director in Donetsk, also participated in the practices of the Theater of the Oppressed as a director and as an active participant. That is, the Revolution of Dignity made certain points that a wider range of values ​​and points should be taken into account in its work. For me personally, it started in 2006-2007. At that time, I was involved in the Invisible Way project, which involved cooperation with visually impaired people; I cooperated with the Ukrainian Society of the Blind, with the rehabilitation center in Kyiv. And this was the first meaningful project of this nature for me.
[00:13:58] – [00:14:00]. Ye. N.: Thank you. Stas, what are your thoughts?
[00:14:00] – [00:22:03]. S.T.: It seems to me that the very path to participatory art is because understanding the life and biography of artists at some point (unfortunately, I cannot refer to dates or specific authors, but I assume) became very important. A cliched example: in school we all read various publications devoted to the life of artists and their work, and art critics even after the passing of the artist draw parallels between his life and work many centuries later. In the 20th century (I think it is inextricably linked to the catastrophes of the First and Second World Wars) people realized that life events are inextricably linked to creativity; this was realized, actually, by living artists, who are beginning to understand how their life affects their creativity, their activity and how it can manifest itself. Obviously, in different ways: relatively speaking, in Jackson Pollock – how his movement – hands, feet, body – affects what we see [in his canvases]; in flux – how can we interpret or celebrate everyday life, how can we transform it through working with it as a work of art. And this also had feedback: some people began to think or ask questions, whether or not life itself as a gift of Life (with a capital letter), the process of life, is a work of art? Practitioners also think that there is an influence of various religious currents here, which consider a meaningful life as something to strive for; here again the word “process” appears, when artists begin to pay a lot of attention or think about their routine, everyday life, to somehow transform or make sense of it – and then show it to the viewer. Here, life cannot be done without travelers.
I will continue Yura’s reasoning about Ukraine and why it [participatory practices] became so popular or visible during this period. I see two parallels. The first is the professionalism of the artist. We live in 2023 [when the podcast was recorded], I have many colleagues and acquaintances of artists, among whom many do not have any specialized education, but at the same time are successful artists to one degree or another. I am now talking about two successes – social, financial and career success, and also purely artistic success. And this professionalism is at some point called into question by the fact that the artist in the XXI century, their elitism, and their belonging to certain professional circles at the initial stage of their business are absolutely not mandatory. As we can see, this may not necessarily be the case throughout his life. So, in my opinion, if an artist is not related to the classical academic definition of “artist”, he is, let’s say, in a slightly different life reality than it was before, let’s say in the 1990s or in the Soviet Union time.
One more thing needs to be said here why, in my opinion, participatory practices are seriously on the horizon. I may be wrong, but this is also due to various self-organized initiatives. When, after the death of Stas Voliazlovskyi, an artist from Kherson, there was a conflict with his inheritance (part of it went to his mother, then everything was bought by the Hryniovs family), I very well remembered Nikita Kadan’s post, which appealed to the fact that the most interesting thing in Ukraine is in the field of contemporary art begins as a grassroots initiative. And then some institutions help the artists, sometimes some collectors “clean up” these possessions, businessmen continue to work with it. But everything that emerges and is the most interesting, in the vanguard, with a “wow effect” for the professional circle is something made by someone himself: whether it concerns the Kherson Museum of Modern Art, or the “Corridor” gallery, or the R.E.P. group, or Detenpyla galleries — the list is very long. And to conclude, I will tell how it the connected with participatory art. Self-organized are often apartment, and yard exhibitions, not always in adapted premises, everything that happens in some way as a “DIY”, mainly due to the lack of budgets. And the artists can’t do anything by themselves: a TV is needed for the exhibition, someone needs a projector, somewhere to print something, to find a free designer… Here you have to go and communicate. This is how a community comes to be. This is participatory art from one point of view: colleagues and like-minded people do something together. But the audience in such places (like the audience everywhere) is prepared or unprepared, often neighbors, friends, acquaintances and random people from the street. However, at such events, due to their smallness, a priori lack of large scale, all people intersect with each other — and you can often find the author, the curator and all the participants in the process. And very often the circle of communication about what is exhibited, why, who does what expands, the process of communication itself is light and very different actors get into it. The peculiarity of such events is that we communicate about art – what is important, why we do it – not just with an unprepared public, but with those who were not talked about in the academies! And this allows looking at art differently. Or at least in such a direct communication, as it was in my professional life, you cannot turn away from a person, you talk to him, explain – and through this conversation, translation into “simple” language, you have to talk about complex things in a very accessible way. And this is precisely, sorry, can’t find a right word… not condescension, but the desire to be understood. A lot of new things arise in such an open dialogue. At some point, it also gave its result, its influence — and such self-organized practices became common in Ukrainian art. They are everywhere, in every regional center, these artists, known or unknown, carry forward in their practice not this struggle against elitism, but a different natural understanding of who we can talk to about art, about important things.
[00:22:03] – [00:23:24]. Ye. N: This is such a forced cooperation that, in fact, in many areas of Ukrainian culture developed very actively, especially after 2013, when there was a huge initiative, a huge rush. And there was also a feeling that it was now or never, so they were already doing it based on the situation. But if we are talking about this significant shortening of the distance in such self-organized conditions, about the absence of a formal barrier between the audience and the artists, then who is the artist in such an interaction? How would you define who the artist is in these mutually beneficial practices, practices of exchange? How is the meaning of this role changing?
[00:23:25] – [00:25:45]. S.T: The problem is that the artist is the one whose name will be signed on the artwork. This is, let’s say, the formal side of the problem. In my practice 10-15 years ago, it was often the case that a person who helped you or was a co-author could be put in parentheses in the caption to the exhibition, they might not be mentioned; I thanked him somewhere, but maybe I don’t need to thank him. Social processes have changed in our behavioral culture the way we mark or understand another person, their role in our activities. This, by the way, may also be related to social networks: previously no one would have said “Why didn’t you tag me?!”, it would be difficult to check. 15 years ago, some artists understood after the fact that they were not included in a certain list or, on the contrary, were included in a place where something happened – and only later did they understand that they “took part” somewhere, where in reality they did not participate or did not want to. Vice versa, they did not participate formally where they did. These formal things are, of course, a consequence, they are not primary, but demonstrative, reflecting how things are happening.
I will also try to answer who the artist is briefly. I came to a certain understanding through my work at “Ateljernormalno” and from the experience of German colleagues who, in working with people with Down syndrome, constantly ask them: “What do you want? What don’t you want? How will you do it? How can I help you?”… And likewise, when we talk about a joint project, where in some sense it is not fully understood, because there are different views on what is a joint product, what is art, what to call whom. And, it seems to me, here, first of all, it is necessary to talk with the participants, whether they consider themselves a co-authors; I can think so, and someone will say “I’m not a co-author, I only performed – I don’t want to be on the poster” or “You don’t need to thank me.” These are different views on things. In my opinion, you need a conversation with the person you’re doing it with to understand who the artist is, what the artwork is, whether there’s an artwork there, or whether we’ve just spent a good chunk of life together and maybe just travelers for each other. What do you think about this, Yura?
[00:25:46] – [00:28:51]. Yu. K.: I think that the very process of coexistence sometimes becomes a work of art. But if we talk about who we can call an artist of participatory art, I think it is the (one) or those people or groups of people who establish communication and those through whom the meaningful part of the work of art emerges. But nowadays it is not one person, but a certain group of people. After all, it is not just about making connections, getting to know each other and talking about some things, but about the formation of a common text that would be understandable for this circle of people and would have meaning for a wider one. Therefore, there are several tasks here. The first thing is to establish a process of creation and co-creation, which will be understood and accepted within the group, as well as the transfer of this text and knowledge to others. That is, there are two functions – provision within the process of creating a text and then translating it for the general public. This is a truly interdisciplinary practice, when (and these can be separate functions) one person sets up a process in a group, the other takes care of remembering how this process is formed, outlines important points of intersection of ideas and, based on this, already builds some kind of meaningful part In terms of the number of participants, it could probably be compared to cinematography, where many, many people take care of different aspects, but in cinematography the director is the fulcrum. And in participatory art, the role of the main actor changes, to some extent disappears — and the process comes to the fore (not the recruitment of actors, as in cinema, where we involve different people), and the one who takes care of the creation of the work — you, Stas, are right, it can be an ordinary person, a citizen, a neighbor – sometimes it is more important for development than a person who received a professional education, such as a painter, director or cameraman. And this, indeed, slightly changes the dynamics within the team, in the process of work.
[00:28:51] – [00:29:16]. Ye. N: You talk about the position of a mediator, a guide, an organizer, but it sounds like suppressing the author’s ego of the artist. Then what is your interest in participating, working in participatory practices — what is artistic self-realization here?
[00:29:16] – [00:32:33]. Yu. K.: Everything here is probably special, very different. After all, a person – we are talking about an artist – has certain chemical processes in the brain, in other parts of the body, in the heart – and because of this, you can stay awake at night, work for days, even weeks without sleep, and it drives you. That is artistic creativity or creativity in general is a process at the level of consciousness, when you can trully ignore the circumstances and be in such a state that you stay awake for several days, work and wonder why everything is happening like this. If we are talking about engagement practices, then sometimes I am just glad to see it also at the level of chemical processes: there is another person, they have some impulses and messages that are clear to me, and I can strengthen them, make them more expressive. And on the other hand, the third person feels the same – and together we form a common expression. By the way, at the workshop of Vera [Ibryamova-Syvoraksha at the Jam Factory in 2023], in the work with sound, it was very nice to see how strangers create a musical composition and each participant, each instrument (not necessarily a musical, conventional instrument, some kind of “the object through which the sound arises) unites [with others] and you understand that you do not lose the peculiarities, but, on the contrary, you can strengthen [the general sound]. It’s just a different type of chemical process in the brain, in the body, a different experience. Such creativity is special because it is always a unique experience. And the development of one type of art does not cancel another but allows feeling differently. Here, it seems to me, there is great diversity in Ukraine, and this is our strength. Another thing is that it is important to remember certain things because it strengthens both the artist himself, the initiator, the mediator, and society in general. In Ukraine, there is really a lot of work in this area — in the development of the field, a cluster of curators, art critics, and theorists who would have the time and opportunity to physically remember these important things, because, over time, many interesting and valuable things disappear.
[00:32:34] – [00:32:43]. Ye. N: Then it turns out that a successful participatory work is a work in which understanding or resonance arises?
[00:32:43] – [00:33:39]. Yu. K.: It is not always an understanding. It used to seem to me that this was the main purpose of such [participatory] art. In reality, it is different. Sometimes there is more results,= and benefits when there is a conflict – and we find the strength to work through it. And this, in my opinion, is even more important – when we do not avoid conflicts (this is about the maturity of the artistic process), but can solve complex, sometimes very complex things through painful processes. So it’s not always just syrup, sometimes it’s a very bitter process.
[00:33:40] – [00:33:42]. Ye. N.: Stas, your comment, please.
[00:33:43] – [00:39:00]. S. T.: I don’t know whose quote exactly this is, I once heard it from Larysa Venediktova: dialogue continues as long as there is a misunderstanding because as soon as people reach an agreement, the conversation ends. If we ask someone something and they say “Yes, yes, I completely agree”, and so on and on and on, then it’s hard to call it a conversation. Therefore, different words, conflicting or ambiguous, are also pillars of conversations. And these words appear in certain environments. Not among friends, although probably long-term friendships or relationships can exist in a misunderstanding or a constant conversation… But often an easier way to find a misunderstanding is to come to strangers, not necessarily from another field of activity, but in another city, in another district of the city, of a different age, if we talk about the Academy of Arts, then to a different group, to a different specialty — and there will be a lot of misunderstanding right away.
And if we’re talking about art, about the ego, I remember when we did the exhibition “Degree of Dependence” in 2015 or 2016 (now I work with the Facebook archives, and not only; this exhibition was about collective practices in Ukraine, the history of these practices, and we touched on the topic of the 2000s, 2010s), Vova Vorotnev wrote that his position is very close to the “Open Group”, because there is no position at all – it is the absence of statements, the emptiness that hides behind the statements of others. And for some reason, the words about the ego reminded me of that. Often, probably banal, i.e. widespread, widespread criticism of participatory practices is reduced to “using people”, to hide behind the fact that “there is nothing to say”. I agree with Yura that it truly is a different way of thinking. While you were talking, Yura, I tried to find an example from other fields. Yes, in literature some people sit and constantly write works – they are busy with their activities, in reality, they are engaged in themselves, they work with themselves. And some poets and novelists run poetry or literary magazines, publish almanacs, and organize festivals. It’s just different types of behavior and types of vision that you can work with in life: someone works with himself – he’s good and maybe it’s related to the vision of how to change the world. Now, this year [2023], it will sound wild in Ukraine, but let’s not forget, these are very common words, already like a meme: “If you want to change the world, change yourself.” And many people, artists all over the world – it was and will be – understand: to change something in this life, in the world, you have to sit down and work very hard with yourself. For some, it is literally work with oneself. Of course, at some point it can be escapism, it can turn into absolute political escapism, but it may not be like that. Why did I mention this? Because there are and can be these types of artists who just work with themselves, and this can be related to how changes in the world or life generally happen. And for someone, a priori changes are when we do something, maybe just as escapist, but at least two or three of us. I am not an expert in the history of art, but in the last few tens of minutes I tried to remember what the first art collectives were: I can’t say for sure, but I remember from the collections of great artists that it was born in the 19th – at the beginning of the 20th century, when artists are beginning to seriously group not for the sake of, say, material comforts (joint workshops), but around programs. As I understand it, these are “Nabi”, Symbolists, Dadaists, Surrealists and Futurists, who are already jointly thinking about manifestos. And this, obviously, is also related to how people see the possibility of change through the democratic process: the formation of political parties, which can already include not only the Lords, the appearance of houses of representatives, etc.