Open Place [Yuriy Kruchak and Yulia Kostereva]

Yuriy Kruchak is a Kyiv-based artist and curator working in the intersection of art and social studies. His interests include interdisciplinary and post-artistic practices and the intensification of connections between the artistic process and various strata of modern society. Kruchak’s artistic strategies depend on the specific problem and usually involve engagement with different communities in the creative process. When working in public spaces, he transforms the audience into actors and creates a community that interprets and reveals social structures in an urban environment. His work explores the relationship between art and reality, as well as the relationship between the artist and the audience.
Yuriy Kruchak studied Scenography at Kharkiv State Art College (1989—1991) and Environmental Design at the Kharkiv Art-industrial Institute (currently Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts) (1991—1996). He received a Master’s in Painting from the National Academy of Fine Art and Architecture in Kyiv in 1999, a laureate of the Gaude Polonia scholarship (2018).

Areas of interest: Participatory art

Yulia Kostereva is an artist and a curator. In 2001 she graduated from the National Academy of Fine Art and Architecture in Kyiv, Ukraine. Her work often involves installations, objects, and collaborative actions that focus on history and narratives related to a particular place, object, or person. Her practice concerns both visual and participatory art.
Yuriy Kruchak and Yulia Kosterieva are the founders of the Open Place interdisciplinary platform (1999), which aims to develop ties between different social and professional groups, contexts, and types of knowledge. The artists work with communities and inclusion, exploring and resolving conflicts in new groups. Art is understood as a space of intersection between artistic, social, and political processes.
Yuriy Kruchak and Yulia Kostereva are the authors of the concepts and methodologies of several workshops, such as Local is a New Global (2012), How does community act? (2016), Migration of Bodies and Words (2017), Culture as a method for change (2018), Between the Vulnerable Territory and the Utopia (2018), Common Landscape (2023).

Areas of interest: Socially engaged art, postartistic practises, co-living (coexistence), interdisciplinary.