Kyiv Perennial: Architectures of Protest – Maidan and Occupied Squares Worldwide
Conversation between Oliver Elser (Deutsches Architekturmuseum Frankfurt/M) and Kateryna Mishchenko (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin) about the Maidan Uprising and protest architecture worldwide. Moderator: Jochen Becker (nGbK)
From November 2013 to February 2014, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians protested on Kyiv’s Independence Square, known as Maidan, for the ousting of then President Viktor Yanukovych and the signing of an association agreement with the European Union. At the same time, Russia’s annexation of Crimea in violation of international law began, a further step in preparation for the large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The exhibition “Protest/Architecture – Barricades, Camps, Superglue,” which was conceived by Oliver Elser together with Anna-Maria Mayerhofer, Jennifer Dyck and Sebastian Hackenschmidt and is currently on display at MAK in Vienna, analyzes this and other protests – from the barricade battles during the July Revolution in Paris in 1830 to the protesters’ physical efforts in the numerous protest camps that can be found in almost every region of the world today – and the architecture that emerged from them. The examples on display are mostly protest architecture without architects. This research, which is particularly important in the context of Kyiv Perennial, will serve as a starting point for a discussion between Elser and the author, publisher, and curator Kateryna Mishchenko.
In German with simultaneous translation into English.