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Collaborative project including Aislinn Evans, Sriram Vankatesh, Yasse Saidi, Eliza Duncan.
Our group’s activities were centered around a "dialogue" of two locations - Kyiv (including Maidan of Independence, Khreshchatyk) and London (Kings Cross area and Granary square). We started with an exchange of research - I read about the London location, events and concepts related to it (gentrification, for example), they - about Kyiv (Revolution of Dignity, etc.).
We discussed what these two places have in common. For instance, both have changed their function over the time. Kings Cross was an industrial point, later becoming a a center of rave culture and getting regenerated in 2010s.
Group Miro Board
With Khreshchatyk and Maidan, after their reconstruction in the 50's and to this day, there was also a metamorphosis in terms of function. Stalin's architecture, which incorporated the glorification of the totalitarian regime and the triumphant pathos, in 1990s became the backdrop for revolutions and protests aimed at moving towards democracy and the European vector of development. The street, built in the style of the Stalinist Baroque, is today associated more with the Revolution of Dignity of 2013-14 than with the Soviet era.
Continuing a discussions on how ideologies can be coded into architecture, we have also touched on the Independence Monument made in Ukrainian Baroque and Classic styles. We have came across the 3D model of the monument and have thoroughly virtually explored it. The screenshot depicting the model from inside. I believe, it illustrates the above mentioned conversation quite well. Some of us were looking from within the context of Kyiv and some from outside, but with the discussion and our cameras we were closely visually researching the architectural elements of both Kyiv and London.
The practical activity was an exchange video works. I was shooting Kyiv, and my colleagues were trying to recreate this video in London, finding similar architectural forms and repeating camerawork decisions. Then they were shooting new material to which I was making the Kyiv response - the result was a chain of a new material and replicas. In these series of videos we are comparing two locations, but also blurring boundaries, merging them, embedding into one another.
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