I was the American Arts Incubator artist for Kyiv, Ukraine in partnership with IZOLYATSIA Platform for Cultural Initiatives over the month of March, 2018. She led new media workshops and projects with over 30 Ukrainian artists focusing on cultural identity and environment, which culminated in the showcase and exhibition Emergent Tributaries at IZOLYATSIA from March 29 - April 12, 2018.

The name of the exhibition “Emergent Tributaries” is in reference to the Dnipro River, which has historically played a central role in shaping the landscape and cities alongside it in Ukraine: as an ancient trade route for goods and supplies, a place for cultural exchange and gatherings, and a provider of energy through hydroelectricity.

I chose the Dnipro River as an entry point into this exhibition — as a meeting place of cultural exchange for a visiting artist and curator from America working at IZOLYATSIA, which is right on the riverbank. I also chose it metaphorically for its ecological network, which connects Ukraine through its many tributaries, as this exhibition has done the same for artists gathering from different parts of the country.

Now linked with digital technologies in a similarly networked fashion, Emergent Tributaries reimagines the present and future of Ukraine through the eyes of these artists and their collaborative new media works. Along the Dnipro riverbanks as well as in other physical and digital spaces, they have refigured cultural identity, personal identity, and our relationship to ecological systems, technologies, our bodies, and the spaces our bodies inhabit through speculative design and design fiction.

"New media is a way to work without boundaries" - Read an interview with Tiare Ribeaux in Art Ukraine about this project. 

More information, photos and video from this project can be found on the IZOLYATSIA archive and on the American Arts Incubator website.

American Arts Incubator is an initiative of the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and is administered by ZERO1. The incubator in Ukraine was produced in collaboration with U.S. Embassy Kyiv and IZOLYATSIA. Platform for Cultural Initiatives.