"There are no tyrannies that would not try to limit art, because they can see the power of art. Art can tell the world things that cannot be shared otherwise. It is art that conveys feelings."

 - Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine 

Уяви Україну – Мистецтво як критичне ставлення / Imagine Ukraine – Art as a Critical Attitude

© Davyd Chychkan
Alternative Hryvnias / Альтернативні гривні, 2021
Series , variable dimensions
digital printout of the watercolor graphics on paper

In 2021, Davyd Chychkan created a series of alternative hryvnias (Ukrainian currency banknotes). The project called Alternative Hryvnias is a continuation of a series of critical works on the phenomenon of “decommunization” in Ukraine. Continuing to research and rethink the achievements of Ukrainian modernist left intellectuals, Chychkan created samples of banknotes that complemented the portraits of  Ivan Franko, Mykhailo Drahomanov and Lesya Ukrainka with quotations that reveal their views on social and economical justice. Unlike real hryvnias that depict Ivan Franko and Lesya Ukrainka, Chychkan's “banknotes” depict as well Mykhailo Drahomanov, Ukrainian left intellectual, whose program texts were used to write the Constitution of Ukraine in 1991. With this project, Chychkan once again points to the forgotten affiliation of Ukrainian classics with the traditions of leftist thought and draws attention to their desire for social justice and general economic equality that still remains revolutionary today.