This summer Lost Farm Festival invites, through their ambitious residency exchange program, five Ukrainian art students and Danish-Azerbaijani lead artist Sahar Jamili to work together to create the Safe House project at the festival.

Young artists around Europe are struggling to comprehend and navigate in an unpredictable and challenging world – where art, education, and culture are often disregarded in favor of investment in war, and practical and emergency needs. Furthermore, there is endless destruction of museums, libraries, art galleries, and universities across the globe by oppressors who know that culture, art, and education are the beating heart of any culture, people, and nation.

On 25 March 2024, the Mykhailo Boichuk Kyiv State Academy of Decorative Applied Arts and Design was bombed. The partial collapse of many of the academy's buildings was a reminder of the destruction of the Ukrainian art, cultural, and educational institutions during the ongoing war with Russia. This of course puts the students and teachers at risk, both mentally and physically, but also the risk of not receiving a proper education and reaching their potential and dreams.

The Safe House project, developed with Sahar Jamilli over many months, will, function as a safe space where Lostfarmers can meet on the festival site, have dialogues, and reflect on identity, cultural history, society, human rights, gender, democracy, and hopefully return to the surrounding world with a feeling of hope, strength, and inspiration to make a better world in collaborating with others.

The students from the Kyiv State Academy are: 

Anastasia Kurchevska
Bohdana Kuznietsova
Hannah Voronuk
Oleksii Semerynskiy
Anna Mokhonko   

Their teacher: 
Oleksandr Bohomaz (Bogomaz)

Mykhailo Boichuk Kyiv State Academy of Decorative Applied Arts and Design Academy is one of the leading institutions of higher education in Ukraine. The academy's main focus is on the preservation, development, popularization of the national spiritual and cultural heritage, and its integration into works of art. However, it may not be so much longer. Every day the around 700 students at the academy are reminded of the risk they take going there to study in the hope of shaping a safe and prosperous future through their art and design.

Sahar Aghaei-Jamili is educated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2024. She works with playfullness and the need to embraces the experience of joy – an act of defiance against societal expectations. Through this, she exposes inequalities, amplifies marginalized voices, and highlights the struggles and complexities of identity. She creates scenographic installations where materials and artistic media congregate, drawing inspiration from underground subcultures and daily life.

The students have as part of the Lost Farm Festival Ukrainian-Danish Art & Culture Exchange Program gone through an intense period of Lost Farm Lead workshops in Kyiv and a 10-day artist-in-residency at Lost Farm HQ in Denmark leading up to the festival in August. When they return to Ukraine they will function as Youth Art & Culture Ambassadors and be part of building an international art and culture platform.

Festival Manager Steen Andersen is the initiator and coordinator of the Ukrianian-Danish Art & Culture Exchange Project. He has traveled in Ukraine for long periods and has continued to visit the country during the over three years war with Russia, both to visit friends and develop the Lost Farm Festival exchange project.

Special thanks to Ukrainian visual artists Swiatoslaw Podlewski and Leo Bernat for introducing me to Mykhailo Boichuk Kyiv State Academy, and making sure that the formal agreement went through.

The project is supported by Danish Cultural Institute, Ukrainian-Danish Youth House in Kyiv and New Carlsberg Foundation.

Photo: Lost Farm