Ukraine Under Fire: The Visual Arts in Ukraine and Abroad Since 2014.

United States

To say that Ukraine has a complicated relationship with Russia is an understatement: the region was under direct rule in the imperial period, experienced a period of freedom after 1917, followed by repressive rule through large periods of the Soviet era, and then regained independence in 1991. Now, Ukraine faces Russian hostility and the violation of its territorial integrity, which began in February 2014 with the occupations of the Crimea and Donbas region. I solicit abstracts from scholars, critics, gallerists, and artists whose work reflects upon the role of the visual arts during the current conflict in this region. I wish to explore how Ukrainian artists represent these conflicts, how artists feel their role may have changed during wartime, what cultural shifts have resulted in the face of the Russian invasion, and how arts professionals have responded to threats to cultural patrimony. Accepted proposals will result in the publication of articles in a special issue of Arts, an international peer-reviewed open access journal.


To say that Ukraine has a complicated relationship with Russia is an understatement: the region was under direct rule in the imperial period, experienced a period of freedom after 1917, followed by repressive rule through large periods of the Soviet era, and then regained independence in 1991. Now, Ukraine faces Russian hostility and the violation of its territorial integrity, which began in February 2014 with the occupations of the Crimea and Donbas region.

I solicit abstracts from scholars, critics, gallerists, and artists whose work reflects upon the role of the visual arts during the current conflict in this region. Their topics should explore how artists have dealt with Russian invasion and other forms of hostilities in recent years. I wish to explore how Ukrainian artists represent these conflicts, how artists feel their role may have changed during wartime, what cultural shifts have resulted in the face of the Russian invasion, and how arts professionals have responded to threats to cultural patrimony.

Accepted proposals will result in the publication of articles in a special issue of Arts, an international peer-reviewed open access journal published quarterly online by MDPI. An example special issue may be found here: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/arts/special_issues/world_war_art_memory

To propose an article for this special issue of Arts, please send a CV, article title, and short abstract to the editor, Andrew M. Nedd, at anedd@scad.edu. Please note that there is a two- stage submission procedure: proposals of no more than 500 words must be submitted by 25 January 2023, and by 25 March selected abstracts will be chosen to be submitted as full articles (max. 15,000 words) for peer review.

Proposals and final articles must employ correct English, and submitters must consider that the primary audience for this project will be academics and scholars.

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