Program
November 25 — Ongoing

Part II

Theater Becomes Home


Press kit


The program at the Theater of Hopes and Expectation has come to an end. The building in the Volksgarten Düsseldorf has been dismantled. But our work goes on as we are raising money to turn the theater into a family home:

The house in which Lena, Inna, Milana, Vika and Maria (Honchar family) lived was destroyed by a Russian tank on March 11.

Together with the volunteer group Livyj Bereh, who visited us in Düsseldorf in September, we want to build a new house for the Honchar family. It will be partly made of the materials we used last summer to construct a theater in Düsseldorf.

We have already delivered the construction timber and OSB boards to Sloboda Kuharska (Kyiv region), the home village of the Honchar family.

The remaining materials needed for the reconstruction of the theater into a residential building will be purchased directly in Ukraine. For this we still need 8.000 euros.

This sum would cover the total cost of all materials, interior equipment and labor. This includes a weatherproof facade, thermal insulation, doors, windows, corrugated metal for the roof, laying an electrical connection, etc.

Donate now! Every Euro helps!

Part I

October 30, 2022

Finissage

1 — 6 pm
October 23 — 27, 2022

Exhibition:
"Our Apartments, Houses, Cottages, Garages, Offices and Backyards"

1 — 6 pm

In the second last exhibition at the Theater of Hopes and Expectations, the Prykarpattian Theater collective shows the results of the workshops they organized first in Kolomyia, then in Düsseldorf, and finally in Chernivtsi, Düsseldorf's partner city in Ukraine: In all three cities, they invited people to build models of apartments, houses, cottages, garages, offices, backyards, and other buildings and places to which they have a real or imagined connection. In Kolomyia, the workshop was attended mainly by Ukrainians who had fled from the heavily contested east of Ukraine to the west of the country. Due to the current events, they made a political statement in which they worked with the personal loss of their home. In Düsseldorf, the concept opened up: here, the participants also dealt with other narratives in relation to displacement and migration, as people from Syria and Georgia, but also people without direct experience of being a refugee , took part in the workshop. This shifted the focus to individual ideas of the home as a shelter and place of privacy, which in part stemmed from the imagination. The workshop in Chernivtsi, on the other hand, addressed a young audience. The students who became part of the project focused firmly on the future, not the past. At the same time, they put the interior in the foreground - while the participants in Kolomyia and Düsseldorf mainly depicted the exterior views of their houses.

The models from the workshop in Kolomyia are part of the "Wartime Archive", an initiative of the MOCA NGO.

Workshop participants:

Kolomyia:
Ania Sokolova, Anna Kuzmenko, Anton Hylko and Yevgen Kryshen, Dmytro Koronik, Kateryna Aliynyk, Maria Liukshyna, Marta Bazak, Oksana Yashchuk, Olga Malyshenko and Anton Vozniuk, Serhii and Kostiantyn Mykhailov, Svitlana Ulianova and Oleksandr Ulianov, Viktor Korchynskiy, Yurii Kruglov, Yulia, Yurii and Dominika Mykhailiuk.

Düsseldorf:
Alisa Kulesh, Alisa Shaposhnikova, Gudrun Lehmann, Lika Chkhutiashvili, Ruth Magers, Varvara Mozhaieva, Violetta Terlyha.

Chernivtsi:
Arina Bardetska, Arina Hitchenko, Kseniia Domaleha, Mariia Shalimova, Oleksandra Holdina, Albert Vardevanian, Iryna Penteliuk, Irutsa Slepeniuk, Kateryna Khuda, Yana Baryska. 

Fotos: Kurt Heuvens
Concept


Theater of Hopes and Expectations. A project under construction

The Theater of Hopes and Expectations took place from August to October 2022 in the Volksgarten in Düsseldorf. At the center of the project was a public pavilion, which was designed and realized by the artist collective Prykarpattian Theater.

The artistic concept of the theater followed the logic of construction as process: on the day of its opening, nothing existed more than a slightly elevated, unroofed platform that would later provide the floor of the building. It served as a stage for events. Exhibitions, lectures, discussions, concerts, performances, and charity events invited people to participate in the discourse in the afternoons and evenings, and, in parallel, the walls and roof of the temporary building were erected in the mornings. A large part of the activities was thus performed in what appeared to be an improvised construction site situation. The displays, which changed from week to week, were assembled from scraps accumulated during construction—cut chipboard, foil, fence elements, etc.—and modified for each event. Some of them were formed into modules. Tabletops could be converted into room dividers, presentation walls or seats, for example, depending on the presentation. To cover the façade, the collective used discarded stage sets provided by local theaters. Not least the necessity to react to the donated material gave the pavilion’s appearance its patchwork character.

This approach reflects the reconstruction of culture that is still taking place in Ukraine today, parallel to the ongoing destruction caused by the Russian armed forces. In addition, the concept, which is based on openness and responsiveness, made it possible to react programmatically to the constantly changing political situation.

After the project was completed in early November 2022, the Theater of Hopes and Expectations was dismantled. The materials, especially its solid wooden base structure, were transported to Kyiv region on the initiative of the non-governmental organization Livyj Bereh. With the additional help of the architect and artist collective MNPL, it was transformed into a permanent residential building. With this act, the artistic project was transferred into everyday life. Today, the former exhibition house provides a home for the five members of the Honchar family, whose former home was destroyed during the Russian invasion in the spring of 2022.

Credits

Kunstkommission Düsseldorf

presents


a project by

Prykarpattian Theater



Theater of Hopes and Expectations




Artists

Ivan Bazak, Roman Khimei, Yarema Malashchuk, Tereza Yakovyna, Ostap Yashchuk


Curated by

Ania Kołyszko


Co-Curator

Nikita Sereda,


Head of Production

Roman Zheleznyak


Builders

Shalva Abashidze, Jamal Ashurov, Andrei Dureika, Mykola Linchuk


Assistаnt Curators

Anastasija Levchuk


Production Assistаnt

Julia Dauksza


Graphic Design

Ostap Yashchuk


Technical drawing

Olga Malyshenko


Architectural Advise

Kaspar Stöbe, Stöbe Architekten

 
Structural engineer

imagine structure GmbH


Copy editing

Ania Kołyszko, Anastasija Levchuk


Translation

Daria Anosova


The project was made possible by the generous help and support of

Bauaufsichtsamt Düsseldorf, Gartenamt Düsseldorf, Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf, Wuppertaler Bühnen, Blumen Wichmann, Bulle Bäckerei, Lunatx Special Effects GmbH, Polnisches Institut Düsseldorf, Charim Galerie, #hotelfriends Düsseldorf Downtown


We would also like to thank:

Agnieszka Skolimowska, Aleksander Gowin, Ansgar Prüwer, Atelier Planeta, Cennet Rüya Voß, Daniel Vaysberg, Dorothee Mosters, Fred Rabelo, Gabriel Sulkowski, Gil Bronner, Heike van den Valentyn, Jan Wagner, Jasmina Merz, Jonas Monka, Joshua Poschinski, Kurt Heuvens, Maksim Dutka, Mara Sporn, Marcelo Busse, Max Sänger, Minna Wündrich, Monika Kumiega, Natalia Liersam, Nicolas Grosch, Novruz Hikmet, Peter Cremer, Rita Kersting, Roman Zheleznyak, Simon Liersam, Stefan Preuß, Valera Brykalin, Yulia Krivic, Zuza Golinska



Information
Volksgarten
40227 Düsseldorf

Google Maps


A project of

With the generous support of




https://imagine-structure.de/