A little more than two weeks remains before the beginning of Art Picnic by Slava Frolova in Feldman Ecopark. And it’s time to open slightly the ‘backstage’ of the process. The main creative driving force of the project is the curators of its directions. They are the ones who create a format for events, who implement ideas and make everything possible for the guests of Art Picnic to become its interested and involved participants. Creative figures volunteered to be the curators of this season. For example, an educator Svitlana Isaieva is a curator of Children direction; or Inna Belobrova, who lives in Kraków (Poland), is a curator of Sport direction. One of the most experienced is a curator of Art and Music directions Kateryna Makukhina, who is engaged in them from the very first season of the project. Kateryna was the one to share the peculiarities of preparation of Art Picnic with us.
— Please, tell us how the art and musical events were prepared and carried out at the previous Art Picnics. What was the most interesting, the most difficult and the funniest?
It’s just impossible to immediately tell about all stories, thoughts, conclusions I had during my work on the project. During three seasons, a lot of things happened, and every time looking back I think “Now, everything has definitely happened!” But every day prepares new opportunities and reveals new boundaries. Art Picnic is like another life, and the most interesting things happen here every day. From everyday acquaintances to sudden small concerts of internationally known stars. I remember an occasion when during the first season, Rasmus bass guitarist Eero Heinonen gave an unexpected concert in one of the exhibition pavilions of Art Picnic at VDNH. It was an amazing evening! As it turned out he practises yoga and found out about the project from his yoga association friends (Sport direction was one of the visitor’s favourites during the first season). So, Art Picnic brings together not only different cities, but even different countries!
The most difficult thing was to begin! It is always difficult to begin. Especially when the matter is in such a large-scale social project. The creation of multidisciplinary social project is considered astonishing and nonsense! The other things depend only on the wish to develop and, first of all, to develop ourselves. During three seasons, we’ve carried out nearly 15 art projects and 350 concerts, and we are not going to be satisfied with what has already been achieved. The project develops, becomes all-Ukrainian and starts to appear in different cities of our country. Since its establishment it has already been successfully held in Kyiv, Odesa and Rivne. Now, it’s time for Kharkiv to host it!
— What interesting/known people took part in these events?
During all seasons, the project has found many friends, the opinion leaders of present-day Ukraine. Among them are the known artists, whose works were presented at the expositions, like Alexander Roitburd, Oleg Tistol, Mykola Matsenko, Ihor Husiev, Vlada Ralko, Stas Voliazlovskyi, Anatolii Bielov and many others. Among performers are Onuka, Gorchitza, Khamerlan Znyshchue Virusy, Freedom-Jazz, The VYO, Irena Karpa, Vera Brezhneva, Fagot and others (this list may be continued). All of them support and love our project, and give their concerts with pleasure, as well as share their experience, carry out meetings and master classes, and by this determine cultural movement. We also hope that this year, the guests of Art Picnic will be able to meet some well-known musicians and artists, and to discover the new ones.
— What tasks do you set as a curator? Art and music at Art Picnic – what is the ideal scenario?
Of course, the main purpose of the musical and art directions is the creation of the platform for the development of modern art, where young artists and musicians have an opportunity to present their talents to the wide audience, where it is possible to reveal new names in absolutely different genres. From our launch in 2013 up to the present day, the positive dynamics has been observed: there are a lot of young artists, as well as bands, and many of them are very interesting. Ideally, it would be perfect to develop the project all year round, to find opportunities for the implementation of various ideas, grants, to find like-minded persons and to enter the international arena. The project has only one aim – to create a new life style, where the culture of present-day Ukraine plays a significant role, and to make it together.
— Is it difficult to combine two directions at once?
Visual arts and music are closely interconnected. When scrutinizing a sculpture or a picture it is possible to hear the music, while listening to the music it is possible to picture some images. That is why both directions are interesting and close to me. Of course, it is difficult to combine two directions at once, especially, when the scope of work is so big that sometimes I have to act as a technician, fitter or many other specialists. Different things happened, but during the years of the project, we’ve even developed a hashtag #wecandoeverything, and that’s true! Our project tends to attract and to gather a lot of talented people. So, every direction has wonderful volunteers, and together with them we create this massive cultural project! And we change the world for the better. Right now. And these superpeople are the reason for this.
— Art Picnic in Feldman Ecopark – how do you imagine it? Will it be different from what you have made in Kyiv?
New city, new location, and new people is always an experiment. This season the project will work in weekend format instead of our usual everyday format. But we have planned a very rich programme on 10 directions for each weekend (Saturday and Sunday). They include art, movie, music, theatre, literature, sport, children, festivals and fairs, good deeds, and meetings with interesting people.
— Tell us please, what your directions of Art Picnic will include, what events, what people (I understand that everything is still in process, and if there is something you cannot tell about right now, may be you can hint)?
We are preparing art projects, drawing lessons, artists’ lectures, street vernissage, ‘photo drying’ exhibitions and various activities for the guests! We invite for participation different art and photo studios, creative initiatives, art projects and just interesting people!
Both the known performers and young talents from across the country will appear on stage of Art Picnic this year. It is too soon to indicate the volume of this city’s sounding, as we are still selecting the participant and form line-ups. We have currently more than 60 requests for participation from different artists. I can reveal a bit of our plans now. One of the weekends will sound in jazz format, and we are planning to organize Pre-Party Weekend with one of our friendly festivals Koktebel Jazz Festival.
— And a couple of words about you: please, tell us why you are engaged in this and what projects you’ve implemented before.
Art Picnic is, first of all, a colossal experience for me. Every season sets difficult tasks and their solutions come up themselves, as I am driven by the desire to develop. The main thing is to imagine, and everything begins to come true!
I am the part of the Art Picnic project from the very beginning. During these years, I managed to implement a lot of projects, to work as a co-curator with such well-known artists and arts critics as Yevhen Karas, Olexa Mann, Andrii Sydorenko. My activities include many exhibitions of the Foundation for Development and Support of Young Art of Slava Frolova – Group (2013-2017), the project “Civil Mysticism” (2014, Modern Art Research Institute of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine), “Ukrainian language” with the works by Maria Prymachenko (2013), art projects within GOGOLFEST (2013-2016), art projects within Book Arsenal (2013, 2014, Mystetskyi Arsenal), exhibitions in HUDGRAF Gallery and other.
