Community – Vidnova

Vidnova Community aims to be a safer, more inclusive, and competence-guided space where individuals can connect, share experience, resources and expertise, collaborate, and collectively work towards recovery and growth. The focus is on fostering meaningful connections and synergy in civil society in Ukraine through shared values, practices, and resources.

Our Community consists of people engaged within all Vidnova programs.

Our Community

Yanush Panchenko

Roma Zentrum für interkulturellen Dialog e.V.

Yanush comes from Kakhovka and moved to Beverungen. In frames of Vidnova Europe, he collected interviews from Roma in Ukraine, monitoring media and social networks, researching how Roma’s participation in the resistance to Russian aggression in Ukraine is covered in the media, and how Roma from the post-Soviet countries reacted to the current situation. Yanush’s host organization was Roma Zentrum für interkulturellen Dialog e.V.

Roma

media

Solomiya Tomaschuk

Solomiya Tomaschuk is a director. She moved from Kyiv to Warsaw, Poland. Over three months, she plans to shoot several portrait documentaries about people forced to move to Prykarpattia from less safe cities: Mariupol, Lysychansk, and Zaporizhzhia.

Anzhelik Ustymenko

Anzhelik Ustymenko moved from Kyiv to London. They are queer activists and filmmakers who document the experience of queer people in the context of war. They have already created such films as Ukrainian Queer Fighters for Freedom and Queer Fighters of Ukraine. As part of the fellowship, Angelique will continue to document the experiences of queer people, including those who have joined the army.

film production

support for vulnerable groups

queer activism

returnees

Lab

Liubov Rakovytsia

DII-Ukraine

linkedin.com/company/dii-ukraine

Liubov is the head of Democratic Initiatives Incubator NGO. She is an expert in the communication of the reintegration of residents in occupied territories, countering propaganda, and verification of sources from the temporarily occupied territories. Within Vidnova Lab, Liubov together with Iryna Solovey and Lera Lauda research how experiencing the trauma of war and accepting its consequences, affect the future healing of the community and the country, as well as its further restoration and strengthening. The project envisions developing a tool for self-assessment for teams that engage in the community-led revival. They focus on the context of competent leadership for the democratic revival of Ukraine with a focus on resilience as the common ground between strategies of the grassroots civic forces, state, donors and local government institutions.

communication

communities

competent leadership

Olena Yehorushkina

Olena Yehorushkina from Brovary moved to Warsaw, Poland. She is an art critic, visual art expert, and curator. In 2022, she launched an exhibition project of Ukrainian wartime art UKRAINE wARTime. As part of the fellowship, she will work on the project’s online catalog.

commemorative practices

visual art

exhibition

returnees

Sаf Gomin

Sаf Gomin moved to Finland from Kyiv. They are artists and journalists. They are working on audiovisual projects, including those about vulnerable groups, the environment, and the Russian-Ukrainian war. As part of the fellowship, they plan to do a project about non-binary people and start shooting a photo series about wounded soldiers and their challenges.

support for vulnerable groups

social activism

queer activism

returnees

Svitlana Liakhovets

Lithuanian National Museum of Art

lndm.lt

Svitlana comes from Kyiv and lives in Vilnius. In the frames of the Vidnova Europe project, she made a banner exhibition about the history of Ukraine. It showed ancient times to the contemporary and about pages of shared history and the struggle of the Ukrainian and Lithuanian peoples against the Russian invaders in different historical periods. Svitlana’s host organization was the Lithuanian National Museum of Art.

art exhibition

history

Alina Panasenko

Alina Panasenko is originally from Sievierodonetsk, lived in Kyiv, and moved to Poland later. She is a filmmaker and visual artist. As part of the fellowship, she will work on the script for the feature film Vine, as well as on the development of a curatorial project, namely the next edition of the book Practice. Cinema and / as Politics”.

social activism

visual arts

film production

returnees

Shaza Musa

Shaza Musa lived in Kyiv and then moved to Berlin, Germany. She is a Syrian-Ukrainian cultural figure, designer, illustrator, and coordinator of art projects. Her purpose is to study patterns that are part of the visual language and design of the Poltava region and design the research into a digital publication.

Natalia Pukha

Natalia Pukha moved to Gdańsk, Poland from Rivne. She is a human rights defender and civic activist who helps people who are experiencing or have experienced gender-oriented violence during martial law. She provides legal assistance to military personnel and their families. She also plans to start advocating for LGBTQ (AI+) community programs and adaptation programs for perpetrators.

social activism

LGBTQ (AI+)

support for vulnerable groups

returnees

Lab

Anna Karnaukh

Lanka.pro

lanka.pro

Anna specializes in designing and managing programs to develop the cultural and creative sector. She is the co-founder and director of Lanka.pro collective. In the frame of the Vidnova Lab topical cluster, Anna and Olena Syrbu work on cultural infrastructure on a local level. They aim to find solutions to make cultural actors at the local level more capable of self-organization and regeneration. Strong local cultural actors can drive changes in their communities, even when state policies on reforming cultural infrastructure are paused or limited.

culture

local level

local culture

Lab

Olena Syrbu

Cedos

cedos.org.ua/

Olena is a researcher, cultural manager, senior analyst, and project coordinator. Her professional and research include cultural labor and cultural infrastructure, public participation, and grassroots activism. In the frame of the Vidnova Lab topical cluster, Olena and Anna Karnaukh work on cultural infrastructure on a local level. They aim to find solutions to make cultural actors at the local level more capable of self-organization and regeneration. Strong local cultural actors can drive changes in their communities, even when state policies on reforming cultural infrastructure are paused or limited.

culture

local level

local culture

Olena Brutska

Olena Brutska was born in Krasnodon, Luhansk region. Lives in Kyiv since 2012. Olena is an activist, journalist, screenwriter, and PR volunteer of the NGO Women’s Veteran Movement. Starting from October 2022, Olena actively worked on covering stories about servicewomen in Ukraine and abroad. Together with Vogue magazine, she implemented the special project “Letters from the Front” – materials in the form of letters from the trenches from female defenders who fight on the front lines. Thanks to Olena’s scrupulous communication activities, it was possible to collect donations from sponsors for the tailoring of women’s military uniforms.

Mariam Agamian

Haus Kulturen der Welt

hkw.de

Mariam comes from Kyiv and moved to Berlin. In the frames of Vidnova Europe, she aimed to establish connections between activists and researchers from countries with a colonial past and openly talk with them. Mariam worked on the future scope and development of the Kviradio (QueerRadio) – an initiative for non-professional reading of texts on queer-feminist topics.

LGBTQI+

radio

Oksana Stomina

Oksana moved from Mariupol to Germany, Munich. Oksana is a poet, writer, public figure, and founder of the NGO “Paperovi Shchy”. During the three weeks of the Mariupol blockade, she worked in a volunteer center and documented the horrors of Russian aggression. Now she has started work on a documentary book about Russia’s war in Ukraine – “WAR ON PEACE AVENUE. Stories of the blockaded Mariupol”. It is a collection of stories of Mariupol residents who suffered from the Russian invaders.

Evgeniya Melkonyan

Evgeniya Melkonyan lived in Irpin and moved to Tarragona, Spain. She plans to work as a facilitator on a creative, restorative movement and voice laboratories project that will help people cope with anxiety, find support again, and recover. She wants to hold about three events in different cities of Ukraine.