Taras Shevchenko five-book set, VHS tape of the New Order concert, 25 x 19 x 15 Museum of Odessa Modern Art, Odessa, Ukraine
Extending his predilection towards speculative time extension as an imagined space of connection, Karabinovych bridges together the Ukrainian diaspora in Manchester and Manchester’s most famous band.
He does by inviting the folk dance ensemble Orlyk, who are named after an 18th century cossack hetman and perform at Manchester’s ‘Dnipro’ Ukrainian Cultural Centre, to cover a New Order song.
Orlyk was formed in 1949 and is one of the oldest established Ukrainian dance groups in the world.
Peter Saville Associates Design
The resulting video documentation shows eleven participants of the dance ensemble and two accordionists performing an adaptation of New Order’s “Chosen Time.”
This track was the first performed by the band at the aforementioned concert in New York, and was the one accompanied by Shevchenko’s portrait.
The documentary was a core part of the interdisciplinary project Ukrainians: the people who cannot go home.
The documentary was complemented with interviews conducted by the artist with diaspora activists, who discussed the history of the Ukrainian community in Manchester, the challenges they faced, and the ways in which they maintained ties.
Substance: Inside New Order by Peter Hook
Still from Orlyk Ensemble, Chosen Time, 3`12``, 2018
Ukrainians: The People who Couldn't go Home, Episode aired Apr 10, 1978
The title of the project follows the speculative name of a BBC documentary film from 1978— “Ukrainians: People who couldn’t go home.”
Karabinovych appropriates this dramatic, overloaded metaphor and relates it to the context of underground culture, which has a storied history in both England and Ukraine and whose most fervent participants, who stay out till late morning can be seen as a people who cannot go home.
But is this really an obstacle? Or an accomplishment?
