This concept album was inspired by the Chernobyl disaster and consists of nine largely instrumental tracks. It’s a soundtrack for an imaginary documentary or as Frank Zappa would say ‘a movie for your ears’. The theme behind the album is that, just as nature has managed to thrive even amidst the terrible fall-out from Chernobyl,…
| March 16, 2017
Svetlana Alexievich’s Voices from Chernobyl collected the testimonies of survivors from the nuclear disaster: military personnel, medical professionals, and, most importantly, ordinary people. Her book is a series of stories that tell the untold: how little the people in the Soviet Union, and especially the Ukraine and Belarus, knew about what happened the night the…
| March 12, 2017
Endless train timetables. Russian border patrol. Patches of forest that swallow you up. A thick fog that brings it memories of a time long gone. Anything but an ordinary film, Tomáš Luňák’s interpretation of Jaromir99’s graphic novel trilogy about the train dispatcher Alois Nebel is a full-length, animated drama, playing at a pivotal moment…
| March 7, 2017
The Concept Space is a brand new venue in Bermondsey debuting with Márta Kucsora on their first solo show together: Viscosity. The mission of the new project space is to become a cutting edge hub for arts professionals, and to present both UK and international artists. The current show was curated by KB Stowe with…
| March 5, 2017
Ognisko Polskie, the Polish Hearth Club in South Kensington, has been around for nearly 80 years, and on entering you almost feel you’ve been extended the courtesy of an old glamorous Polish family, with large spacious rooms and crystal chandeliers adding to the ambience. It’s a good place to hear the story of a Countess,…
| March 2, 2017
‘Cigars and delicate silks, cocaine and metal files, loose-leaf tobacco from the state of Virginia and black wine purchased on the isle of Chios. Every object had its price; they washed down each figure with Bessarabian wine, which smelt of sunshine and bedbugs.’ This is how Odessian-born writer Isaac Babel (1894-1940) describes the riches of the port-…
| March 1, 2017
The evening’s events took place in the Main Space at Rich Mix and before the music started at around 9 o’clock old Russian sci-fi movies were shown on the large screen behind the stage and the audience were offered free cups of home-made borscht. Violinist Flora Curzon and cellist Francesca Ter-Burg were the first act…
| February 28, 2017
In ‘Neon’, Eric Bednarski’s award-winning 2014 documentary, the history of Warsaw is traced through its neon lights. It’s a retelling of Polish history, mixing documentary features from several decades, focusing in on small stories alongside the great events of the recent past. We caught up with the Director here. CEEL: How did you come to choose neon…
| February 25, 2017
Another Russia: Post-Soviet Printmaking is one of V&A’s newest temporary displays, comprising around 40-50 graphic works and offering both a fascinating insight into the post-Soviet printmaking practice and a glimpse into V&A’s contemporary art collecting activity. All works on view are the museum’s recent acquisitions, some made possible through the help of grant funds, and…
| February 25, 2017
Black Hole Generation (BHG) is a Prague-based collective of young artists, whose core members, David Krňanský, Martin Lukáč and Julius Reichel, are now showing eighteen works at London’s small Dot Project Gallery. Having studied together at UMPRUM, Prague’s Academy for Arts and Design, one of the most innovative institutions in the country, BHG undoubtedly aims…
| February 24, 2017