What Would You Take?

Home. Your home. Your place. Your memories. Your belongings. In the blink of eye, it’s gone. ‘WHAT WOULD YOU TAKE?’ is an exhibition of photographic and narrative portraits from the Ukraine diaspora, the largest displacement of people in Europe since the Second World War. The portraits tell the stories of twelve people from Ukraine who suddenly had to leave their home, taking only the bare essentials, and one cherished belonging that speaks to their life.
The exhibition and documentary 'WHAT WOULD YOU TAKE?' are showing to October, at Europe House, 32 Smith Square, London SW1P 3EU. Open Monday - Friday, 10 am - 6 pm.
Discussion of documentary and exhibition with photographer Kaupo Kikkas, filmmaker Heilika Pikkov, and writer Kateryna Babkina, with moderator Maria Montague. 1 June 2023, in partnership with the European Parliament's Liaison Office in the UK.
Speakers
Kaupo Kikkas is an Estonian visual artist and photographer whose body of work often contains recurrent themes of nature and music. His portraiture is described as capturing his subjects with the same melodic and sensitive perspective. His recent exhibition Inner Cosmos premiered in 2022 at the Fotografiska Institute in Tallinn, attracting over 25,000 visitors. His other recent and internationally recognized exhibitions have included Treescape (2016), Ansel (2018), and the multidisciplinary sculpture Sphere-20 (2021). A number of his photographic collections have been published as books, including Ansel (2018), The Story of One Hundred (2018) and Inner Cosmos (2022).
Heilika Pikkov is a documentary filmmaker and internationally well-known curator and cultural manager from Estonia. She studied film and television directing at Tallinn University and spent a semester at the University of Central Lancashire in the UK. She was the organiser and programmer of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival’s animation festival, Animated Dreams, for eight years. She has directed several documentaries, including Flowers from the Mount of Olives (2013), which had great success in Estonian cinemas and had its international premiere at the Locarno Film Festival, and My Flesh and Blood (2018), which won Best Short Film of the Year at the Estonian Film and Television Awards.
Kateryna Babkina is an award-winning Ukrainian poet, columnist, screenwriter, playwright and author. Along with her poetry collections, short stories and novels, she has also written several books for children, which are very popular in Ukraine. In October 2022 her children’s book Cappy and the Whale was published by Penguin Random House, UK. Kateryna's novel Sonia (2013) was shortlisted for the 2013 BBC Book of the Year, and My Grandfather Danced the Best (2019) won the Angelus Central European Literature Award in 2021. Kateryna’s works have been translated into English, Swedish, Polish, German, Hebrew, French, Spanish, Romanian, Czech and Chinese, and her plays have been staged in Kyiv, Vienna and Geneva. She has also written columns for Esquire Ukraine, Le Monde, and Harper's Bazaar, and three of her screenplays have been made into films. Kateryna currently lives in London, England.
Moderator
Maria Montague is the Deputy Director of the Ukrainian Institute London. Over the past year she has launched the Ukrainian Institute London's English School for Displaced Ukrainians, produced the UK premiere of Lesia Ukrainka's play Cassandra, and managed a full programme of events aimed at platforming Ukrainian voices and raising awareness about Ukraine's culture, history and ongoing resistance against Russian aggression. Maria also has research and project management experience in international relations. She previously worked with the Chatham House Ukraine Forum and the LSE Arena programme, which is dedicated to analysing and overcoming polarization and disinformation.
Find out how you can support Ukraine: ukrainianinstitute.org.uk/rus...
Please consider supporting Ukrainian Institute London: www.justgiving.com/ukrainiani...