Whereas billions of {dollars} in army support has been despatched to Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion on 24 February, comparatively little cash has been directed towards the nation’s artists, lots of whose livelihoods and studio practices have been utterly upended by the struggle. However since April a gaggle of non-profits in the USA has been funneling essential funds on to particular person Ukrainian artists who’ve been reeling from the consequences of struggle.
PEN America’s Artists at Threat Connection (ARC) programme, with $2m in funding from the Helen Frankenthaler Basis and one other $100,000 from the Andy Warhol Basis, has given grants to 133 visible artists who’re Ukrainian or have been residing and dealing in Ukraine initially of the struggle. Up to now $182,000 have been given to artists by means of the programme, principally within the type of emergency grants to assist important wants like housing and meals, whereas a smaller share have been resilience grants supposed to assist artists pursue their artistic practices.
“The Ukraine struggle got here after so many different crises and we discovered that there simply weren’t sufficient emergency and resilience grants,” says Julie Trébault, the director of PEN America’s ARC programme. “Enabling artists to outlive and proceed their artistic work is basically additionally contributing to the event of Ukrainian artwork and tradition, and to stop its eradication by Russia.”
Tamara Shevchuk, Вroken coronary heart, 2022 Courtesy the artist
The grants have helped artists with bills starting from important medical care to the buying of kit to do their work and making repairs to their studios. For Andrii Pushakarov, a painter from Dnipro, an emergency grant helped pay for medical bills associated to a coronary heart situation and canopy his lease. Kostiantyn Skrytutskyi, an artist concerned in Kyiv’s beloved Peizazhna Sculpture Alley, will use his emergency grant cash to take care of his 11-year-old youngster and his pregnant spouse. Tamara Shevchuk, an artist, artwork instructor, artwork therapist and graphic design from the Kyiv area, used her grant to exchange a pc that was stolen from her dwelling whereas Russian forces have been occupying her neighborhood. For Kyiv-based artist Viacheslav Snisarenko, the grant cash will go towards finishing a brand new venture and making repairs to his studio, which has been left windowless by the struggle.
“It is a important a part of our work, which is basically to assist artists make the work they do, but additionally to supply them direct help to face the struggle,” Trébault says. “Plenty of artists we now have helped are both in occupied territories working in Crimea or the Donbas, others are in struggle zones and a few artists who’ve fled the nation with their households and want resilience grants to work on their initiatives.”
