Elderly Young People
Curatorial Program of Iryna Slavinska
Being high school students, we lived in a world where the only place to read about leisure, culture and city life was glossy magazines in Russian. I caught the time when people were openly proud of their experience of work for Russian media and Russian culture, hinting or saying outright that Ukrainian experience and context fell short—whatever that meant. Therefore, the increased presence of Ukrainian content in media and culture after 2004 was truly a very important factor, a shift in reality. They confirmed that I was normal. That my experiences could be written about in literature and media, that my experiences could be spoken aloud in my own language. In the reality of that time, there was finally a place for me and my words.
Just under forty, just over forty—this is a marker of a very special experience. The generation that during its turbulent youth caught 2004, 2013 and 2014. Perhaps that is why we did not have a quarter-life crisis. And at the age when we should have been reaping the first fruits of approaching maturity, the full-scale invasion started in 2022.
This generation includes prominent names and texts. Some made their debut in the 2000s, some in the 2010s. But it is not the starting point of their life and creative journeys that is decisive here, but the experience that this generation carries within itself. Or rather the time density with which this experience is unfolding now, at the height of our biographies.