With the aim of preserving Ukrainian culture, the Museums with Ukraine initiative was born, which yesterday held a conference at the Ramón Gaya Museum in Murcia with different activities, including the presentation of two books, a painting workshop and the screening of a documentary. In addition, the Ukrainian regional costume was exhibited in the showcase on the museum’s façade, this time a mourning version due to the war in the country invaded by Russia. “Usually our costumes are very colorful. But during the black episodes, it is only usually embroidered in that color and some in red, like this one,” explained Larysa Ponomarenko, president of the Association of Ukrainians in the Region of Murcia and the Union of Associations of Ukrainians in Spain (KRAI). A suit that always includes the characteristic embroidered shirt, a heritage of centuries that “has endured the times of famine and centuries of oppression.” In addition, embroidery remains in current fashion, says Ponomarenko, who has been living in Murcia for two decades. “It is very welcoming” thinks the Ukrainian about the Spanish region in which a greater percentage of Ukrainian people live. To learn more about this typical costume, the documentary ‘Nation’s Heritage’ was screened, directed by Oleksandr Tkachuk and with Lesya Vorunyuk as a scriptwriter.
Yesterday the Ramón Gaya Museum also presented an unpublished work by Sonia Delaunay (Hradyzk, 1885-Paris, 1979). Painted in 1948, the painting belongs to a private collection and will remain in the art gallery “until after the summer”, according to the director of the institution, Rafael Fuster, about a curious unpublished work belonging to the Ukrainian painter nationalized French, the first woman to exhibit at the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Larysa Ponomarenko: “Our costumes are very colorful but in the black episodes they usually embroider in that color”
“Her work was initially figurative and her work drifted towards abstraction,” said Fuster about the painter, of whom it is considered that “a quilt she made with scraps for her son” was her first work. The internationally recognized artist inspired her art in the popular culture of her country, she mixes painting with textile design and fashion.
two new publications
During the day, organized by the Ramón Gaya Museum, ICOM Spain (International Council of Museums), the KRAI and AURM associations, the Murcia City Council and the UMU, the books ‘A handful of land’ and ‘Come down, angels from the sky’. The first of these, published by the Reino de Cordelia publishing house, is a bilingual anthology of Ukrainian poetry. Luis Gómez de Aranda and Olena Kúrchenko sign the translation of a volume that is illustrated with paintings by artists from the collection of the National Museum of Art of Ukraine.
“We think that painting and poetry are two arts that are closely linked,” explained Sergi Shayka during the presentation of the book, for which he had the help of the poet, philologist and translator Luis Alberto de Cuenca.
The second publication, ‘Come down, angels from heaven’, of which 1,500 copies have been published and which is not for sale, contains songs and fables by Grigoriy Skovorodá, a wandering thinker from humanist Ukraine, translated by Olena Kurchenko.
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