Oleksandra Matviichuk

is the head of the Center for Civil Liberties, a human rights lawyer specialising in issues in Ukraine and other countries in Europe, the Far East, Central Asia and North America
She initiates projects aimed at promoting democracy and protecting human rights. After the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, she co-founded the initiative “Tribunal for Putin”, which documents the war crimes of the Russian invaders. She received the Democracy Defender Award and participated in the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program at Stanford University.In 2022, she received the prestigious Right Livelihood Award and was named one of the 25 most influential women by the Financial Times. Under her leadership, the Center for Civil Liberties won the Nobel Peace Prize 2022 (together with Russian and Belarusian human rights organisations).

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Yaryna is a visual artist, performer, co-curator, and lecturer. She works across various mediums including performance art, painting, graphics, and installation, exploring the concept of presence through the body and its visual expressions.Having graduated from the Lviv National Academy of Arts, Yaryna was a grant recipient of the Gaude Polonia scholarship program by the Polish Minister of Culture and was shortlisted for the Young Ukrainian Artists Competition MYXi (2015) and the II Youth Biennale of Contemporary Art of Ukraine (2019). Yaryna has showcased her work in solo exhibitions and art projects across Ukraine, Poland, and Spain. She has participated in numerous exhibitions, performance art festivals, and conferences worldwide, spanning countries like Ukraine, Poland, Italy, Norway, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Germany, France, Portugal, Spain, Israel, Japan, Thailand, Canada, and the USA.An active organizer and curator, Yaryna co-organized the School of Performance (2019) as part of the International festival “Days of Art Performance in Lviv”, as well as online residencies like “At the place” and “Performance Archive. Ukraine” (2020). She also shares her expertise as a teacher at the Department of Contemporary Art Practices at the Lviv National Academy of Arts.Yaryna’s recent works have been featured at А231 Federação (Salvador, Brazil), JDMooney Foundation and FLOW / Out of Site Chicago (USA), Ukraine!UNMUTED (Kaunas, Lithuania), and BIFPA’23 (Belfast, Northern Ireland/UK).
Yaryna Shumska
Visual artist, performer, co-curator, and lecturer