The Ukrainian Institute London in partnership with PEN Ukraine and the Ukrainian Institute will run Ukraine Lab, an online residency for six emerging writers from Ukraine and the United Kingdom from 9 May–17 June 2022. They will be supported developmentally and financially to produce creative nonfiction pieces tackling global challenges through the prism of Ukraine. This project is supported by the British Council and the Ukrainian Institute as part of the UK/UA Season of Culture 2022.
Ukraine has been often called a laboratory when it comes to many challenges facing humanity today, be it ecological emergencies like the Chornobyl catastrophe, Kremlin-led digital disinformation campaigns, or the impacts of modern war. Ukrainians have responded to each of these issues with resilience and creativity and turned Ukraine into a treasure-trove of cultural resistance strategies. Learning with and from Ukraine is crucial for tackling global challenges in the areas of environment, security, and disinformation in the twenty-first century.
The residency will feature an educational programme – with online seminars and workshops, plus a trip to Kyiv to visit the Chornobyl exclusion zone and the Public Interest Journalism Lab – and a creative programme during which participants will work in three cross-cultural writing pairs.
English is the working language of the residency. The creative nonfiction pieces will be originally written in the writers’ first languages (Ukrainian and English) and then translated professionally. All workshops and peer-review sessions will be held in English.
Each UK-based writer will be paid a fee of £2340. The participants are expected to work approximately 3 days per week for the six weeks of the residency.
