Scotland-Ukraine Residencies: Etching Room 1

As part of the Scotland – Ukraine Art Residency Programme ESW is delighted to welcome the Ukrainian duo Etching Room 1 for a 6 week residency at ESW. The residency programme is a pilot programme for Ukrainian arts professionals A bespoke programme will be created for each participant, offering them time away from turmoil and a chance to reflect and think to the future for their own artistic practices, their organisations, and the wider art sector in Ukraine.

Etching Room1 is the artistic group founded in 2016 by two graphic artists Kristina Yarosh and Anna Khodkova in Kyiv, Ukraine who work with etching techniques and create mosaics and installations. Yarosh and Khodkova are working on a mosaic mural of illustrated tiles. Continuing their interest in street art and public art this mural will be be installed in one of the public spaces around ESW’s building offering passers by an unexpected encounter with contemporary art.

The residency programme is a pilot programme for Ukrainian arts professionals delivered in partnership between British Council Scotland, Creative Scotland and the Ukrainian Institute. A bespoke programme will be created for each participant, offering them time away from turmoil and a chance to reflect and think to the future for their own artistic practices, their organisations, and the wider art sector in Ukraine.

What do you expect from this project?

It’s not a nice way to start some project with some expectation. It’s more about creating the arts in a safe place for us, you know?

And what is it about?

About everything! I think if you saw the picture, the Swimmer, you can find everything on it and you got to be ready to dive into any problems and any catastrophic, so it is about everything, all the problems of the people around the world. Different ones or something similar, so I think it can be understandable for everyone. The modern world is so full of events that it is easy to get lost in them or simply survive. People get lost in the amount of information they receive every day 24/7. Some events in one part of the world are difficult for people from another part of the world to understand because everyone has their own experience. Sometimes these experiences can be similar, and sometimes completely opposite. The central figure of our project is an abstract swimmer. Who is ready to dive into the whirlwind of events and is ready to survive and solve all the problems that are rushing around him in an endless stream. We think that this feeling unites all people on this planet, regardless of the difference and the global nature of their problems.

Why a swimmer?

It’s more about feeling, like a life experience. When you first start swimming, then you start jumping from the smallest height and over time you gain both depth and height at the same time.