"The Survivor Syndrome": Second instalment of “Union of Hovels”

On 18th of May 2018 at 3pm, the Hudrada curatorial group invites to get involved into collective work “The Survivor Syndrome” at Mikhailovska Plosha / near St Michael’s Square. Together with the participants of the curatorial group, an architectural construction will be assembled and taken apart again. The object is dedicated to anarchictectural forms as well as to groups of people who create shanty hut structures in urban spaces.

 

Union of hovels2 poster

The curatorial collective Hudrada is devoting this work to Roma and other spontaneously arrived communities who bring with them architecturally unpredictable temporary housing. The construction, whose collective creation Hudrada is inviting the public to join in making, has been conceived as something similar to the ruined shell of a shanty hut which was built and then torn down in 2017 at a temporary Roma settlement in Kyiv’s Dneprovsky district in 2017.

Hudrada is inviting all interested parties to create this object in order to state collectively  that all different types of people can and should be able to co-exist peacefully in Ukraine. In this example, the shanty hut embodies the vulnerability and fragility of communities who arrive and disappear spontaneously. At the same time it can become a disquieting object when set against the logic of the majesty of monumental symbols of power.

Survivor’s Syndrome is a term which emerged in the 1960s as a means of describing the condition of both victims and executioners (as well as their children) who had lived through large scale persecutions and mass murders during the 20th century. The defining element of this syndrome is that its sufferers experience sharp feelings of guilt connected to no more than the fact that they are alive and in existence. 

The name chosen for this work by Hudrada points to the presumption that the single hut we’ve rebuilt (who magically knows about the destruction of his remaining brothers) suffers from this syndrome.

 “The Survivor Syndrome” – is a reminder too of the fact that throughout the 20th Century right across Ukraine, all kinds of social and ethnic groups have found themselves subject to repression. Our goal today is to keep these pages of history where they belong, in the past.

Hudrada curatorial collective welcomes all participants to join them on Friday the 18th of May at 3pm in building the shell of a hut on Mikhailovskaya Ploschad (St Michael’s Square). We also extend our invitation to human rights and cultural initiatives to help us distribute information about this event and to become its partners.


Event partners:

Prostory magazine www.prostory.net.ua / with support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany

Method Fund https://sites.google.com/site/methodfund/metod-fond-method-fund

Eastern Rights Group http://www.vpg.net.ua/news/

Critical Design Studio 12345678910


Union of Hovels is a long term project by the curatorial group Hudrada devoted to developing the idea of Anarchitecture. The first instalment of Union of Hovels too place on the Venice Lido during the 55th Venice Biennale.

The basis of the project “Union of Hovels: the Survivor Syndrome” is photographic documentation of a ruined Roma settlement made by Yevgenia Belorusets. The author of the architectural project is Dana Kosmina.


Hudrada is a Ukrainian curatorial group and experimental platform for interdisciplinary collaboration. Its members include artists, architects, critics and writers.