“Are you from Mariupol?”. Four and a half walls of the TY Platform are shown in Kyiv

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Is it possible to get to know a place that no longer exists? How to reproduce the destroyed independent artistic space of Mariupol in a small apartment on the capital’s Left Bank?

The exhibition “Mitropolitska 19” is dedicated to the Mariupol phenomenon – To the TY platform and the community that developed around it from 2016 to 2022. On Saturday, January 20, it opened in Kyiv in a small apartment-gallery. It contains works about the sea, activism and the memory of the free city.

Journalist UP. Culture Anastasia Bolshakova tells why this miniature event is significant.

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Space depot12_59which I need to get into, is located in an ordinary Khrushchev apartment at 12 Budivelnykiv street. A similar district with such recognizable Soviet buildings in the capital Darnytsia and the five-story building itself could well exist in Mariupol.

Now here, in an apartment adapted for a gallery, they are trying to recreate a place about the current state of which almost nothing is known – the Mariupol platform TYU. Although the building of the art center is abandoned, the artists brought the atmosphere with them to Kyiv. TU as a phenomenon continues to live.

Now I face the challenge of finding the right entrance. I don’t see it right away, but I orient myself by the sign with the apartment numbers. The doors on the fifth floor are wide open – the audience takes off their shoes and jackets inside – this is the rule. The floor is almost completely covered with winter boots.

A small corridor leads to the right, into the living room and the main hall of the exhibition space. Above the room is the street sign “Mitropolitska 19” – I came to the address.

On Metropolitan street in Mariupol, in the building of the old gym, TY Platform first appeared 8 years ago – a gathering place for artists and artists from all over Ukraine.

There is not much space in the one-room apartment (later it turns out that there are two rooms, but one is used), so I carefully enter the “main hall” and examine the works. All paintings, photos and collages hang on bare walls. Instead of plaques, pencil inscriptions directly on the plaster tell about the artists.

Various things are collected here: photos of the city streets, the sea and those parts of Mariupol that have been documented. Among the paintings is a series of works with a lesbian pensioner, a radical right-wing beekeeper and other representatives of modern society. And here are three landscapes with bombed-out black houses in the same black smoke. In the center of the wall is a picture that transports the viewer to the TU building, with a two-story exhibition, guests and small exhibits.

Read also: “Resembles ruins.” The Mariupol City Council showed what the central library destroyed by the Russians looks like

Socks cling to the parquet floor – not the exhibition space she is used to. But is it bad? Absolutely not, the floor here is also disguised as an underground. Even closer to the center is a brick-colored carpet.

Only at first glance it seems that the space is small, in fact it takes a lot of time to look at the details of everything that has been collected here.

The official opening is at 4:00 p.m., so I have plenty of time to talk. The founder of the Tyu platform Diana Berg it is difficult to capture even in a limited space: she gives comments to journalists, greets acquaintances from Mariupol, who are just arriving for the opening. At the same time, she talks about the exhibits and the names of the artists.

Therefore, while I go to the kitchen, to another improvised hall of the art space, there are conversations between old friends, and those who are not recognized are asked the code phrase: “are you from Mariupol?”. The window here is hung with a canvas with the image of Azovstal, on the wall next to it is a large exclamation “Tyu” laid out with bright artificial flowers and illuminated by a blue lamp. And according to all other signs, it is, after all, a kitchen: there are glasses and drinks on the table, dishes are stacked in the cupboards, and a microwave is nearby. Next to her, not so obviously, is another exhibit – postcards with film photographs of one of the residents of the platform. You can take them with you as a memory of the sea.

I return to the living room, now I go to the next wall. On it is a printout with the participants of the exhibition, almost every signature is accompanied by the words “the works were lost in 2022”. Nearby is another paper reference – an official letter with a seal and signature from the Chechen battalion named after Sheikh Mansur for 2019. Then these military men in the direction of Mariupol saved the collection of the artist from the village of Shyrokyne Viktor Pavlyuk and handed it over to the platform. 339 works could not be saved a second time, with the beginning of a full-scale war.

Next is a large collage on a cork board – “Vira’s wall”, as Diana would later say about it. There are many photos and clippings on it: Andruhovych is smiling here, Zhanna Kadyrova is dancing on the table, next to it is pasted the news that the punk band “Hamerman Destroys Viruses” will come to celebrate Tyu’s birthday on Halloween. Vera Protskikh, the author of the collage, shared memorable moments, but also honestly wrote on a piece of paper above the blackboard:

“Memories of how we created the TY Platform and what happened to us during its existence were supposed to be collected here. I wanted to tell more, but I’m sorry, I don’t remember“.

Another bright work is on the wall opposite – a large Ukrainian flag with a coat of arms. There is also a signature under it:

“This flag was almost the only item that was saved from the Tyu Platform in March 2022. Created in 2018 at 19 Metropolitan Street, it is a real historical artifact that has survived numerous actions, risks and attacks in Mariupol, and then visited many cities and countries. He personifies the activism of the Tyu Platform and our fight for justice, for human rights and for our freedom“.

While looking at a tablet with clippings about activism and actions in support of women, people with disabilities, the LGBTQ+ community, the code question finally comes to me.

“Are you from Mariupol?“, the man asks me.

“No, but today I came to meet him“, I answer him honestly.

He is a journalist who has been living in Kyiv for a long time. He talks about his memories of working in his hometown, shares how everything changed when Russia came there. And these memories are also a kind of exhibits, the people of Mariupol try to remember the bad and the good, to keep everything in the memory of others.

Read also: Anniversary of the destruction of the drama theater in Mariupol: the team told how it resumed work in Uzhhorod

I catch the moment and grab Diana Berg for a conversation. She says that today a lot of “her people” really gathered here, including Kyivans who were familiar with the work of the TY Platform.

“Artists whose works we had (on the platform, note) are presented here. Now we asked them to give something of their own to mark their presence. Because the work can no longer be restored, but it was the people who created that atmosphere. Artists, teenagers who came to us, all those who often joined our actions – these are all people who created this style“, says Diana.

She quickly points to each wall, conducts a curatorial express tour: here is art by Viktor Pavlyuk, here is a platform scene by Vira Protskyi, then a tribute to Mariupol art in the form of a small fragment of a mosaic in a frame, next to a flag and memorabilia about TY’s activism.

“We can’t do promotions in Kyiv yet, I don’t feel this space is mine yet. Like in Mariupol, please!, – he jokes, – The whole street was ours“.

Diana explains that TU is a space that from the very beginning was a reaction to war, often in impossible conditions, so it will not be possible to reproduce it anywhere. However, the team is happy to have a temporary home for a month, in which it has freedom of action.

“I know what it’s like to be displaced (Diana first left Donetsk in 2014, then from Mariupol in 2022), to not have a home. And now it turns out that TYU is a VPO“.

Suddenly, Diana sees the familiar face of the boy entering the living room and hugs him almost in tears. Immediately after the greeting, he says: “Today I want to ask everyone: are you from Mariupol? where were you? and where did you live?”.

Diana returns to the conversation, says that they plan to work further – this exhibition may be the first in a series, but it requires a lot of resources and brings back memories of losing TY.

“But all this must be done somehow. As long as we remember, Tyu lives, this is the hope that we will return. Because the building definitely stood, there is always hope“.

Read also: The Mariupol Chamber Philharmonic opened the season in Kyiv – the orchestra members received a standing ovation

It’s almost 4:00 p.m., which means it’s time to open “Mitropolitska 19”. The organizers invite everyone to take paper cups with drinks from the kitchen, the crowd gathers in a circle. The welcome speech begins.

TU is a grassroots space, and the place in which the visitors found themselves somehow resembles it. Diana talks about the life of the art platform, about how there was so much art in the building at 19 Metropolitan Street that there was no place to store it in the basement. All this time the intercom is ringing, more and more people come to look at the memories of artistic Mariupol.

Even during the celebrations, people around share memories of the city, suddenly a discussion begins about the “Pryazovskoye Worker”. After the mention of this newspaper, there is laughter in the circle from those who understood the joke.

Vera Protskikh, an author who came from Riga to help create the exhibition, also talks about her memorable collage:

“I wanted to show some part of what was outside these posts, outside the projects. And from this came a small wall of notes, as Diana calls it – “the wall of Faith”. But, unfortunately, I don’t remember most of the things, because it so happened that they took both the house and some part of the memory. But I already see many people from Mariupol, and I really ask my colleagues and friends to tell and show about everything, so that we all feel as if we are back at Metropolitan 19 in the best years of the platform“.

Before opening the champagne, they warn about loud noises. The cork flies — now the exhibition is officially open. Colored confetti flies from Diana Berg’s bag onto the brick-colored carpet.

Read also: From a state of security to a state of struggle. How to (not) interact with Russian artists as a Ukrainian artist

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