"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 – Маленькі та великі історії / Imagine Ukraine – Small and Big Stories

Imagine Ukraine / Уяви Україну, 2022
Digital image

The main campaign image of ‘Imagine Ukraine’ was proposed by Nikolay Karabinovych. It is a continuation of a digital image the artist conceived in 2018. The circle with its two colourful arrows was at that point encircling the word ‘Revolution’. Now it encircles the question of the project, articulated typographically, with ‘Ukraine’ as a sturdy presence and imagination evoked as a playful, joyful capacity.

After the Maidan Revolution, the national colours yellow and blue became more present in public space, which they hadn’t been before. The artist at that moment used them from time to time, not for immediate political reasons but to deconstruct them on the level of colours, as an open-ended reflection.

In the context now the circling continues its visual challenge in changed circumstances, focussing on a notion that is an open one yet also one that clearly exists, both as a past and as a future aspiration. The encircling defines and contextualises the notion but not as a border, as an ongoing possibility of focus.