* KhTZ is an industrial district on the eastern outskirts of Kharkiv. Built in the 1930’s around the Kharkiv Tractors Factory as a model of the socialist city of the future, the KhTZ District was created mainly for factory workers and their families. Due to the decline in production, and privatisation, the factory at the present has lost the role of a unifying center. Social connections fell apart, objects of social and cultural infrastructure were destroyed or their social and cultural purpose was changed to commercial.



The residency’s aim is exchange information, conduct research, and collaboratively develop innovative visions of how to build and transform public spaces in industrial neighborhoods.

Our school KhTZ will focus on socially engaged art, and will encourage exchange of expertise and development of new methods of collaboration between art and society. The Residency will serve as a platform for redefining the artistic and curatorial methodologies, as well as will research the practises that are based on critical, social and collective way of doing to achieve social change. The context of post-industrial areas will be a starting point for artistic reflections. The program’s topics include but not limited to: Uncomfortable heritage – rethinking the history and shaping the future of the post-industrial areas; Other spaces: artistic, activist, research and educational initiatives that work with the communities and for the benefit of the communities, often filling the gaps in the state institutions system; Power – Society: What does ‘Power’ mean?, the ways and forms of exercising power. The residency has interdisciplinary character and will include theoretical and practical components. The residency will contribute to the building of stronger artistic networks between young artists, activists and researchers in participating countries as well as to bridging the gap between academic study and artistic practice.

The project is interested in attracting artists under the age of 30 from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan whose practices are based in socially engaged art and can include a wide variety of ideas, methods of implementation and the practices such as fine art, design, performance, media art, film, architecture, academic research, social action, economic-related.

Duration of the residency: one month
Program dates: May 10 – June 07, 2021.
Program will cover: international travel, accommodation, per diem, as well as materials costs for projects created as part of the Our School KhTZ.

In order to participate in the open call, please fill in the application form either in:
English: https://forms.gle/WJB3vRB9gK1Gtqv59
Ukrainian: https://forms.gle/8QSLzj5XJ9LMeMAC6
Russian: https://forms.gle/9L39RUAMLcoVvroHA

Supported by: Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development