Litera Union NGO

Litera Union NGO was founded in 2016 to support the functioning of the Kharkiv Literary Museum. Litera’s goal has been to develop and promote local culture, primarily through engaging with the cultural legacy and through supporting museum efforts.

The organization processes grant funds for projects of the Kharkiv Literary Museum since the museum is a municipal institution and has certain limitations when it comes to fundraising.

Successful projects (with Litera as the manager of museum’s funds):

Not about Khvylovy / In the Name of the City project, 2024 
The project offers creative reflection of the experiences and memory of the frontline city through an exhibition, a mural, a museum tour route, a film “In the Name of the City” and a culture studies essay on liminal experiences.

The project brought together the visual artist Kostiantyn Zorkin, the architect Viktor Dvornikov, the poet Natalka Marynchak, the director Denys Vorontsov, the literary critic Yevhenii Stasinevych and museum team members Tetiana Ihoshyna and Tetiana Pylypchuk.

Art is an instrument for processing reality during liminal experiences. Memory is not about those who lived here before us: it is about us, those who live here now. We are seeking instruments to acknowledge the ever-changing reality that we had found ourselves in, and a new language to convey our unmediated experience.

It was a part of the larger educational project “Heritage: Space for Work.”

With financial support from the Partnership Fund for a Resilient Ukraine (PFRU).

Project “Heritage: Space for Work”, 2024 
We created and implemented a training program for cultural operators in frontline oblasts. Within the framework of the program, specialists from the Kharkiv Literary Museum served as mentors in the training projects “Your Home is Where Your Traces Are” at the Kapitolivka Village Library, “The Distant and Close Repin” at the Ilya Repin Museum in Chuhuiv, and “The Future Museum” at the Hryhorii Skovoroda National Literary and Memorial Museum. With financial support from the Partnership Fund for a Resilient Ukraine (PFRU).

“SkovoroDance, or ‘To each city its own demeanor and rights’ (© Hryhorii Skovoroda)” Project (2023–24)
The reggae album based on poems of the 18th-century Ukrainian philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda was created as a collaboration between the writer Serhiy Zhadan and the Ukrainian-German composer Yuriy Gurzhy. It offers a modern interpretation of the philosopher’s reflections on freedom, self-actualization and happiness. Projects of this type promote Ukrainian cultural heritage in mass culture and become an instrument to bring people together around shared values. The visuals for the album were created by the artist Vitalii Kokhan.

In 2024, the SkovoroDance vinyl record was presented in 12 cities and towns across Ukraine and played at 15 Ukrposhta post offices in the entire country.

With financial support from the Partnership Fund for a Resilient Ukraine (PFRU), the Transformation Communications Activity (TCA) project financed by USAID, Goethe-Institut in Ukraine, Nürnberger Haus Cultural and Educational Center and the US-based Razom for Ukraine organization.

The Fifth Kharkiv project (September 2022 – February 2024).Jointly with the Ukrainian writer Serhiy Zhadan
A literary festival in a war-threatened city (Kharkiv, 23–25.09.2022) is about strength, resilience and a clear understanding of what we are fighting for in the war against Russia. It is about the importance of culture during the war. The festival provided impetus for the development of the discussion platform “The Fifth Kharkiv” to discuss the city’s future within the Ukrainian and global contexts. We followed up the initial 3-day literary festival with two monthly or bimonthly 1- or 2-day events:

“The Fifth Kharkiv: Expression” (October 2022 – February 2023): essayistic and art events to reflect on Kharkiv’s future;

“The Fifth Kharkiv: Text and Context” (March 2023 – February 2024): discussions with foreign intellectuals on the current Ukrainian situation.

The goal of the discussion platform was to reflect on the changes unfolding in Ukraine and in Kharkiv in particular. Over the course of these two years, we held 31 thematic days (84 events) with artists and researchers from 8 countries.

With financial support from International Renaissance Foundation.

Exhibition “Antitext,” 2023–24
The exhibition of graphic art focuses on the texts of Ukrainian culture that had been destroyed by the Soviet authorities, either eventually rediscovered or seemingly lost forever. The exhibition explores the mechanisms of cultural genocide and the public impact of blank spaces in our culture and memory.

May–December 2023: the exhibition was first held at the National Museum-Memorial of Victims of the Occupation Regimes (the Prison on Łącki Street, Lviv, Ukraine).

January–April 2024: Kharkiv Literary Museum.

September 2024: the exhibition was hosted by the “Kharkiv: (Non-)Relocated Culture” festival at the Ivan Franko National Academic Drama Theater in Ivano-Frankivsk (Ukraine).

October 2024: the exhibition’s German-language version was exhibited at the art space of Hotel Continental – Art Space in Exile (Berlin, Germany).

October 2024: the exhibition’s German-language version was exhibited at German-Ukrainian festival IMMER WIEDER AUFBRUCH (Cologne, Germany).

November 2024: the exhibition’s German-language version was exhibited at the annual conference and general assembly of the Austrian Association of Slavists at Graz University (Graz, Austria).

With financial support from Michael Zeller and Lion's Club of Wuppertal, Sofija Onufriv and Translit Translators’ Union, Plarium Ukraine, Ukrainian Emergency Art Fund, Yuriy Andrukhovych and Transformation Communications Activity (TCA) project financed by USAID.

“Proper Names” exhibition, 2023 

A street exhibition focuses on Kharkiv place names and streets named in honor of Russian artists. The exhibition does not focus on the works or status of these Russian writers but rather on the reasons behind naming streets in Ukraine after Russian cultural figures. Who and why used the names of these Russian artists to name our streets?

The exhibition was held in Kharkiv at the Theater Square between the monuments of Pushkin and Gogol. The re-envisioned idea of the exhibition lay the groundwork for Mystetsky Arsenal’s street exhibition “Proper Names. VOX POPULI” in Kyiv.

With financial support from Yuriy Andrukhovych and Literarischer Frühling in der Heimat der Brüder Grimm, Sofija Onufriv and Translit Translators’ Union, Serhiy Zhadan and Tetiana Vlasova.

Virtual LitMuseum, 2021

We developed a realistic 3D space to host online exhibitions.  "Virtual LitMuseum" mobile app offers access to the project of the reconstruction of the LitMuseum developed by Drozdov & Partners Architectural Bureau. To download the app, please follow the link: "Virtual LitMuseum"

The project was developed with support from the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation.

In 2023, the app was in the top-5 in the “Education, Art & Culture” category of the Webby Awards held by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

Kharkiv Art Residency “Slovo,” 2018 till now 

The initiative was founded in 2018 as a Kharkiv Literary Residency by PEN Ukraine, Kharkiv Oblast State Administration and the Kharkiv Literary Museum. In 2020, the Kharkiv Literary Residency was held with support from the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation. In 2020, the Residency was given access to two memorial apartments: Yurii Shevelov’s apartment in the Salamander House and Petro Lisovy’s apartment in the writers’ Slovo House. The project was subsequently reframed as Kharkiv Art Residency “Slovo.”

With financial support from Kharkiv Oblast State Administration, Ukrainian Cultural Foundation, “Ukraine XXI” Charitable Foundation, private donors and GVL.

Previously:

Old-Fashioned Party in the Style of Ivan Kotliarevsky's Aeneid (2018)

A multi-stage event joined by Kharkiv-based cultural activists, civic activists and businesses.

With financial support from Toloka Charitable Foundation.

One-Day Festival "LitPro: Literary Space for Dialogue" (on the occasion of LitMuseum’s 30th anniversary, 2018), with financial support from Factor-Group Ltd, New Style JSC and private donors

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Eye to Eye Festival: sociocultural dialogue between the sighted and the unsighted (2016), with financial support from the Charitable Foundation for the Social Development of Kharkiv Oblast and Yaroslav Markevych.

“Book Flowerbed” Street Library at LitMuseum (2016–19), with financial support from Connections Charitable Foundation, Civic Informational and Analytical Centre for Youth and private donors.