Does hope as a feeling help you to shape the future? Or is it perhaps more the case that it allows you to remain passive as an expectation? In times of crisis like these, these are important questions. And ones that also move Anna Konjetzky as a person and choreographer. As a choreographer, the Munich native created the piece “Hope/less“, which celebrates its premiere on September 27 in the Muffathalle. And as a person, she was confronted with it in a new way in the face of the Ukraine war. Here, however, the reaction was: “We have to do something.” Instead of just watching with hope The result: Together with her team, she initiated an “emergency residency program” and has supported ten artists from Ukraine so far.
You can find out who and how exactly at “Not-residency-but-art” in the “Playground” in the art district on Dachauer Strasse. For three evenings from September 15th to 17th, works of art and performances by seven Ukrainian artists in residence can be seen there. They were all supported here in Munich for one, two or three months. They got accommodation through friends or volunteer supporters and were financially supported by Konjetzky’s team or through donations. In addition Konjetzkyas she says: “How can we involve them, network them and bring them together?”
Specifically, these are: the feminist media artist Iryna Kudria; Elza Berdnyk and Mark Symkin, who call themselves the Kreida Group as a duo; the artist, performer, dancer and curator Taisiya Melnyk; Kateryna Pits, who studies human-computer interaction; Maryna Semenkova, interested in ecofeminism and collective memory; and Alyona Tokovenko, who studied at the Kyiv Academy of Media Arts until 2020. They have all made new works for the exhibition, and the Ukraine war is a theme in almost all of them. On the first day, Maryia Zoryk will also give an opening lecture. Daily meetings are also scheduled.
They definitely want to continue with the residency program. And now they also get funds for it “through the Federal Cultural Foundation”. Otherwise, the experienced, “very great willingness to help” made a lot of things easier for them. Which is why Anna Konjetzky is now asking herself the question: “How can we continuously practice this form of direct solidarity?” So that in the future others, and not just artists from Ukraine, will also benefit from it.
Not-residency-but-art, Thursday, Sept. 15 to 17, daily 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., Playground, Dachaue Straße 112D