'Ukrainian for Beginners' is a video program curated by Nikolay Karabinovych for CINEMA TICK TACK functioning as an ensemble in which non-obvious voices will sound with greater force.

The artists whose work will be shown in this program are in different places; some of them are hiding from the bombs in the underground right now. Others managed to move to a safe place, some were forced to leave in anticipation of the war, and someone else is still on the run.

'This video program was not planned in advance.

Unlike the war in Ukraine, which has been going on for more than 8 years.

On the morning of February 24, the entire territory of the largest country on the European continent was bombed.

Is this the right moment to talk about art? - I do not know.

Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt, and others will never be able to answer this question for me.

But I am convinced that every opportunity to talk about Ukraine is essential even now when it is somehow too late. 

Every voice of Ukraine has to have a chance to be heard.

This had happened before: waves of interest in Balkan, Syrian, Afghanistan art rose and then slowed down. 

What will be left after the war?

Perhaps that is what you will see in this program.

The paths of Ukraine and Belgium are very complicated and not so intertwined.

I have been researching this for several years now.

Unfortunately, with rare exceptions, Ukrainian art remains a sort of intrigue. 

Therefore, an important goal of this program is acquaintance, or meeting Ukraine.

The most straightforward and accessible principle by which this program is arranged is chronological.

The first part of the program consists of video works produced in the 90s. The existing canon of representation of this period in Ukrainian art is available to the general public. But, my task as the curator of this program is to create an ensemble in which non-obvious voices will sound with greater force.

It is impossible to start a conversation about what is happening now without looking back.'