"HOW ARE YOU"  
installation, performance, objects  
February 24 - March 6, 2022  

The house of the outstanding constructivist Vasyl Yermilov went down in history as one of his most successful design projects. In a small attic, above the city of Kharkiv, he was able to combine life and creativity, adapting the limited space to their artistic and vital needs.  

Yermilov did not know that the Center of Contemporary Art would be named after him.  

And the name has a magical meaning, it seems to direct the vector of development, forms the unique features of its carrier. From the beginning YermilovCentre was doomed to a separate path and special mission. But no one imagined that under the city of Kharkiv, in the constructivist basement of Karazin University, a project would take place and answer all questions about this path and mission at the end of the winter of 2022.  

On February 24, the war in Ukraine began. Kharkiv artists with their families and animals panicked wanted to hide from Russian bombs. They were looking for a place where both their lives and consciousness would be safe. "YermilovCentre" became a meeting place for outstanding artists of Kharkiv, taking over the function of their protection and rest.  

The project "HOW ARE YOU" is a total installation consisting of various constructions for sleeping, cooking, washing and entertainment. This is a performance where artists  constantly work in the environment they create and in the company of other artists. This is an adaptation of the exhibition space with the remnants of the last exhibition for life and creative needs.   

This project shows a new form of relationship between space and the artist, the art institution and the art community, which may be the final for the great historical cycle of Kharkiv art. We were there together, we built a house out of what we could find, we worked and rested, we were synchronously scared of explosions and calmed each other down. And everything we did was real art.  

Text by Kostyantyn Zorkin.

In the project we used photos, created by Eliza Mamardashvili, Kamila Davlyatshina, Yulia Vakulich, Roman Pyatkovka, Pavel Makov, Rodion Prokhorenko, Vladislav Yudin, Lilia Petrova, Daria Moskalova, Tatiana Zorkina, Natalia Ivanova, Alexandra Kutenko, Margarita Rubanenko.

More photos at the link: https://drive.google.com/.../1Wp7r...