June 21–November 2, 2025
Lviv
Ukraine
On 21 June, Faktura 10, a core initiative of RIBBON International, will open a major international exhibition and discursive platform curated by Marta Kuzma, Artistic Director and Chief Curator of Faktura 10, to include:
Nobuyoshi Araki, Gregori Warchavchik, Francisco Goya, Moyra Davey, Trisha Donnelly, R. H. Quaytman, Frederick Kiesler, Yana Kononova, Kateryna Kopeikina, Anna-Mariia Kucherenko, Clarice Lispector, Boris Mikhailov, Noel Nutels, Janina Pedan, Julie Poly, Charlotte Posenenske, Walid Raad, Oleksiy Radynski, Yaroslav Solop, Taras Spivak, Harun Farocki, The Centre for Spatial Technologies
With works co-commissioned by Faktura 10/ RIBBON International, and Jam Factory Art Center, The Stammering Circle is a distributed exhibition on view at locations throughout Lviv, addressing disruption as dysfluency—a “stammering” that makes room for the pause essential to the exhibition of art in the context of war. What are the forms and expressions—beyond mourning, loss, and requiem—that seize on instability to make a space to create resonantly? The Stammering Circle draws inspiration from the writings of Czernowitz-born Paul Celan to respond to these questions. The poet, who in the aftermath of the trauma of World War II emphasized art’s need to roam in an “art-less, art-free manner.”
The Stammering Circle encompasses the visual, the auditory, the performative, and the dialogic, to embrace testimony, historical material, archival documentation, and a myriad of discussions that acknowledge the lived experience of war as posited within art production. The exhibition is woven throughout the city of Lviv with a fixed exhibition site at the Jam Factory Art Center, and further locations including Dim42 LPE "Lviv Radio" and the Machine Hall of Lviv Polytechnic National University.
The Chalk Circle: public programming
The Stammering Circle conjoins concepts brought forth by Paul Celan and wrestles with ideas around truth, justice, and social responsibility as threads of Bertolt Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Inspired by this, the public programme is entitled Chalk Circle.
It will run in parallel with the exhibition to frame the thinking around projects by artists, cultural producers, thinkers, philosophers, architects, musicians, and composers who engaged with The Stammering Circle.
Chalk Circle programming, featuring Ina Blom, Gerd Zillner, Peter Osbourne, Oleksiy Radynski, Julie Poly, Janina Pedan with Katya Kopeikina and Anna-Mariia Kucherenko, Moyra Davey and Walid Raad will occur until June 27 at various locations throughout Lviv, including Jam Factory Art Center, the Lviv Polytechnic National University, Home of Sound LPE "Lviv Radio" Dim Zvuku, among others.
About Faktura 10
Faktura 10, a core initiative of RIBBON International, is a multimodal program that supports a common basis for creative life and cultural discourses in Ukraine. Faktura 10 focuses on artist practices evolving within the immediacies of the war and its aftermath. It comprises ten events ranging from exhibitions, performances, and plays to screenings, research projects, and discussions, all of which will be held in 2025 within Ukraine, as well as within communities and cities of solidarity internationally. Marta Kuzma serves as the Artistic Director and Chief Curator of Faktura 10.
About RIBBON International
RIBBON International is a not-for-profit platform supporting historic and contemporary Ukrainian arts and culture in the form of exhibitions, artist commissions, public programs and grants. RIBBON runs through Ukraine by way of its railway system. RIBBON aims to provide support to the endangered legacies of Ukraine’s cultural and artistic heritage, as well as to artists, cultural producers, contemporary culture and institutions throughout Ukraine in their fight for cultural autonomy.
About Jam Factory Art Center
Jam Factory Art Center, a contemporary art institution opened in November 2023 in Lviv, Ukraine, is housed in a revitalized neo-Gothic building that once served as a jam-producing factory. Through exhibitions, theatrical performances, musical events, film screenings, educational programs, and community-oriented projects, the art center engages people in dialogue and strives to enrich their experience and knowledge.
