Voices for Ukraine. Reading of texts

As part of the ‘Voices for Ukraine’ cycle of activities, we are presenting a reading of texts from Ukrainian literature translated into Catalan especially for the occasion by the translators and poets Andríi Antonovskyi and Catalina Girona. Together with the actress Montse Domènech and the IEA students Oriol Martorell and Sofia Kostyukevych, they will read poems and prose by classic and contemporary figures such as Lina Kostenko (1930), Dmitró Pavlytxko (1929), Volodýmyr Sosiura (1898–1965), Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861), Lèssia Ukraïnka (1871–1913), Oksana Zabujko (1960) and Serhíi Jadan (1974).

The readings will take place in the exhibition Tàpies. Melancholia, featuring works from the early 1990s. During this period, conflicts such as the Bosnian war and the Rwandan genocide left their mark on many of Tàpies’ works, where images of mortuary shrouds, bones and skulls, and allusions to death and pain frequently appear. Unfortunately, in the current context, these references take on a new meaning and remind us of the war in Ukraine. In A Personal Memoir: Fragments for an Autobiography, Tàpies wrote of his youthful reflections on war from around 1946–47:

‘In a world where so many important things were being discovered, how could it be that the way for men to live in peace had not yet been found? It was not long since the Second World War had ended, and for a time its apocalyptic trace was clearer than ever, as images of the brutality of the Jewish extermination camps and the fate of the victims of radioactivity came to us through books and documentary films, seen half-clandestinely at the British or French Institutes.’

The selection and preparation of the texts has been carried out by Natalia Ushakova with the help of other teachers from the Vassyl Karazin National University in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and the Russian language teacher and actress Montse Domènech.

With the collaboration of Born Centre de Cultura i Memòria, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB), Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC), Museu Picasso, Fundació Joan Miró, IEA Oriol Martorell, PEN català and Associació d’Amistat d’Ucraïna i Catalunya (UCRACAT).

Acknowledgments: Frederic Amat, Arnau Barios Gené, Miquel Cabal Guarro and Xènia Dyakonova.

Image: Courtesy of Frederic Amat.

Participants:

Andríi Antonovskyi (Khmelnytskyi, 1973) is a poet, painter and musician. He has lived in Barcelona for about twenty years, where he translates Ukrainian poetry into Catalan, together with Catalina Girona, and Catalan poetry into Ukrainian. He has participated in several literary festivals, both in Catalonia and Ukraine, has published two books of poetry and some translated works. He also participates in various international music projects.

Montse Domènech (Sabadell, 1968) has a degree in Slavic Philology from the Universitat de Barcelona and a degree in Translation and Interpretation from the Universitat Autònoma, Barcelona. She has a postgraduate degree in Migration Studies from the Universitat Autònoma. She is currently an actress, a Russian language teacher at the Escola Oficial d’Idiomes Drassanes and an interpreter, an activity she carries out mainly in the field of culture and human rights.

Catalina Girona (Massachusetts, 1967), is a translator and poet who has always been associated with languages and translation. Based in Catalonia for the past twenty-five years, she translates mainly from Catalan, Spanish, French and German into English, but also from Ukrainian into Catalan with her partner, Andríi Antonovskyi.

Sofia Kostyukevych (Barcelona, 2006) is a 4th-year ESO student at the IEA Oriol Martorell, specialising in music. She has been playing the piano since she was five and likes to paint.

Natalia Ushakova (Kharkiv, 1960) is Head of the Language Training Department 1, Institute of International Education for Study and Research, at the Vassyl Karazin National University in Kharkiv, Ukraine. She has a PhD in Education Sciences and is herself a teacher.