FREE Virtual Event / БЕЗКОШТОВНО
This event is offered in English
Join Ukrainian-Canadian artist Ayla Dmyterko for an online artist talk about her exhibition Vyshyvani Kazky, Embroidered Stories, on display at the Zalucky Contemporary in Toronto in conjunction with the CONTACT Photography Festival from April 30, 2022 - May 28, 2022.
About the exhibit:
From one bread basket to another, the first wave of Ukrainians arrived in Saskatchewan, on treaty 4 territory – the traditional lands of the nêhiyawak (Cree), Anihšināpēk (Saulteaux), Dakota, Lakota, and Nakoda, as well as the homeland of the Métis/Michif Nation. The Ukrainians’ agrarian knowledge and labour was obliquely utilized in the Crown’s colonial project as they were simultaneously dispossessed of their lands back home via the Soviet collectivization project. The artist’s ancestors were one of many caught between these imperialist projects of the early 1900’s.
This exhibition presents a triptych of lens-based generational returns by Ukrainian-Canadian artist Ayla Dmyterko. Mediated through diasporic imagination, she traces the path of her ancestors from the Carpathian Mountains and the Ivano-Frankivsk region of Western Ukraine; through the Glasgow Ports, where she is currently based; to Montréal, where she studied; back to the prairies, where she was raised. Unravelling the complex histories of place, her auto-ethnography catalyses intersectional dialogue within settler-imperialist legacies, both in the East and in the West.
Reactivating and re-embodying Ukrainian cultural memory, Dmyterko’s photographic and moving image works, Future Projections (2018), Peasants Under Glass (2020) and Solastalgic Soliloquy (2020-22) discursively respond to historical injustices to create sites of transformation. Incorporating archival images of her family, folkloric costumes for stage and her own muscle memory, the artist oscillates between reverence and regeneration. The lenses that document this work become portals, symbolizing both temporal and spatial remove, distance, and dissonance. Taken together, Dmyterko uncovers ways that the past is continuously modified and re-iterated to shape our current psyche and conceptions of the future.
To read the artist’s full statement, go to zaluckycontemporary.com/exhibitions/upcoming
About the Artist:
Ayla Dmyterko (b.1988, she/her) is a Ukrainian-Canadian artist based in Glasgow. Upon completing her Master of Fine Art at the Glasgow School of Art (2020), she was awarded the Graduate Fellowship through Glasgow Sculpture Studios. Prior to studying in the UK, she completed a BFA in Painting from Concordia University, Montréal (2015) and a BEd in Visual Art and Dance Education from the University of Regina (2011). She has exhibited her work at international galleries and institutes including VITRINE, Basel & London; CCA Glasgow; Lunchtime Gallery, Glasgow; Projet Pangée, Montréal; The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, MAP Magazine, Glasgow, Art Gallery of Regina; Hague Gallery, Regina; Woodland Patterns, Milwaukee; Regina Performing Arts Centre; MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina; Gallery Aux Vues, Montréal and forthcoming with Alchemy Film Festival, Hawick. Her work is published in Art Maze Mag, New York; KAJET Journal, Bucharest; Penrose Helix, London; Chains, Glasgow & Mainz and 2 Queens Gallery, Leicester. She has participated in residencies through The Work Room, Tramway, Glasgow; Transmission Gallery, Glasgow and forthcoming at Inshriach Bothy Residency, Cairngorms, Scotland and Aqtushetii Residency, Omalo, Georgia.
www.ayladmyterko.com | @ayla.dmyterko
The exhibition will be on view until May 28, 2022 at Zalucky Contemporary.
Gallery hours are Thursday to Saturday, 12-5PM or by appointment.
For questions, contact: info@zaluckycontemporary.com
Information about the exhibit: zaluckycontemporary.com/exhibitions/upcoming
Funded in part by The Shevchenko Foundation, Jean Karakola & Linda Ladin Visual Art Fund
In partnership with the CONTACT Photography Festival
Programming by Zalucky Contemporary and SVI – Toronto
We are dedicating our cultural programming to those affected by the war in Ukraine. Please support our workshops by participating and sharing the information widely. All donations will be directed to the CUF-UCC Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal – Ukraine needs our support.