15/10/2022
With the participation of many, the "Theater of Hopes and Expectations" will be built in the Volksgarten Düsseldorf during the months of August, September and October: A temporary architecture, intentionally opened during the time of its construction, as a sign of solidarity with the people of Ukraine who are rebuilding their homes where they have been destroyed by the Russian military since the beginning of the invasion. In its form, the construction refers to neoclassical ‘Socialist’ or ‘Stalinist’ architecture, which was built during the time of Soviet Union and in a cynical twist of history becomes a target of attacks by the Russian forces in our days.
The “Theater of Hopes and Expectations” invites the population to become part of a movement of reconstruction, whether through active or ideal support of the project or participation in the program held here. During and after the finalization of the theater — which plays with thoughts around fiction and reality, staging and truth, hope and demand, intimacy and representation, faith and knowledge - various artistic actions are taking place.
The project is shaped by Prykarpattian Theater. Behind the name is a Ukrainian artists* collective whose five members have a common connection to Kolomyia, a town in the Pre-Carpathian Mountains of the western Ukrainian region of Ivano-Frankivsk. Their collective work reflects on the traces left by the four occupations of the region throughout history and sets them in a translocal dialogue. The collective was founded in 2022, when the invasion by the Russian army began. The collaboration between its members started six months earlier, in the course of the exhibition "Independence Day Exhibition. Claudio, Edik, Serhii, etc" in Lviv.
