CV
Iryna Zamuruieva makes images, writes, walks, organises and performs. Across her work she explores human-environmental relationships, through environmental humanities and cultural geography research, curatoring, photography, collage and gatherings of all sorts (sensory group walks, collective readings, mourning ceremonies). Originally from the middle of the Ukrainian steppe, Iryna now lives by the North Sea coast in Scotland. Here she works with a sustainability organisation Sniffer on transforming organisations and places to flourish in the future climate. This involves leading climate change adaptation projects (with Adaptation Scotland) and exploring the role of creative practices in eco-social transformations (with CreaTures). She’s currently researching the relationship between land use, ownership and climate change in Scotland, with insights feeding into Scottish climate and land policy. Her writing has been published in the Commons: journal of social criticism, Open Democracy and Scottish Left Review amongst others. Iryna also curated Climate Art Labs, an art/research/activism project exploring the meanings and impacts of climate change through art in Ukrainian environments.
IG: iryna_zamuruieva
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Art
2022: Adonis vernalis dreamings / Марева Горицвіту, composite image series, writing
2022: Feral Gift, loop, exchange and panel discussion, Uroboros Festival, Prague, Czechia
2022: i dream to see the steppe again, performance and reading with Darya Tsymbalyuk, Sett Studios, Edinburgh, Scotland
2021: Where are the pigs? African Swine Fever in deadly assemblages, short film produced in collaboration with just wondering
2021: Pig Mourning Ceremony, performance commissioned by Unfix Festival and Uroboros Festival
2020: autonomous care unit: non-hierarchical care structure experiments, ongoing
2020: 🐖Pig Response Project🐖, an ongoing curatorial initiative for practising careful pig-human relations. Collage, trello-art, excel-art, writing, audio, poetry, performance, interviews. See antiviral pig pod.
2020: A garden becomes a caring monument to the weather-world, poster series together with Addenda Press, Kyiv, Ukraine
2019: The Office, live installation and wall pieces, part of XR Summerhall: Act Now, Edinburgh, Scotland
2018: Walking one sense a time, series of day and night time sensory walks and mapping practices, Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand
2018: Derive/drifts in parking lots and other places, series of walking explorations, Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand
2016 – 2017: Nature Theatre, interventions in public places exploring human-nature relationships, various locations in Germany
2016: Urban Nature Orientation Challenge, interventions in public places exploring human-nature relationships, Kiel, Germany
2016 - ongoing: socionatural assemblages, digital composites & collages
Curatorial
2020 – 2021: Art Tech Nature Culture Network, co-chair and co-host of the monthly community takeovers, with Briony Benge-Abbott (int)
2021: care infrastructures, curating an exhibition and public programme for the One Night Public Gallery, Sopot, Poland
2020: Extraordinary Climate Movement, mini version, part of the Earthmate festival, Kyiv Botanical Garden, Ukraine
2020: Herbal sensing, with Zsofia Illes/Sensory Placemaking and Michal Smythe/Phytology, School for Civic Imagination’s programme element at Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow, Scotland
2019: Extraordinary Climate Movement [Надзвичайний кліматичний рух], group show and public programme, Rezydentsiia Molodi and MetaCulture, co-curator of the exhibition and public programme, Kyiv/Chernivtsi, Ukraine
2019: Climate Art Labs, artists / scientists / climate activists interdisciplinary residence, curator and project manager, Slavske, Ukraine (UA)
2019: XR Summerhall: Act Now, group show and events programme for Extinction Rebellion Edinburgh, Summerhall, Edinburgh Festival Fringe – co-curator of the exhibition and curator/programmer for the events programme, Edinburgh, Scotland
2019: Climate Reflections: Human Stories of Hope & Fear, Out of the Blue Drillhall, curatorial and design support, Edinburgh, Scotland
2016: Einweg Erfahrungen, socially-engaged photographic project and exhibition, Werkstatt für kreative Unruhe, Kiel, Germany
Group exhibitions
2019: The Office, live installation and wall pieces, part of XR Summerhall: Act Now (UK)
2017: Where do we go from here, part of the Visions and Reflections: Our Shared Environment project created to raise awareness around environmental protection, Izolyatsiya, Kyiv (UA)
Residencies
2020: Landscape as a Monument, cultural landscapes, environmental history, human/nature dichotomy, industrial heritage and legacy, (UA/online)
2019 - 2020: School for Civic Imagination, peer-to-peer horizontal artists learning and development programme with a focus on socially and ecologically engaged art. Run by Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow (UK)
Talks & lectures
2022: Feral Policy: how can creative practitioners and policy-makers work together for multi-species governance?, panel discussion, Uroboros Festival (CZ/int)
2022: Creatives in an era of climate emergency, panel discussion with Creative Carbon Scotland and Creative Edinburgh (UK)
2022: War/life balance and climate justice work across disciplines, talk for the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development (NL)
2021: (post)capitalist ecologies: nurturing different futures, lecture and workshop for the Left Perspectives Summer School (UA)
2021: Ecofeminisms, lecture and workshop for the Theories for Practice Feminist School at the Feminist Workshop (UA)
2021: Baltic Sea Lab: How creative practices can support sea health, panel discussion (UK/international)
2020: Art and climate change science in Ukraine, public talk @ Landscape as Monument residency public programme (UA)
2020: Climate emergency and cultural sector, Art Footprint Conference (UA)
2020: Climate Art Labs co-curators and participants reflections, part of Art-Sereda [Art Wednesday] artist talks programmes at Izolyatsiya (UA)
2019: Reimagining socionatural assemblages in the Anthropocene through a Nature Theater, Art in the Anthropocene International Conference, Dublin
2019: Creative practices and community engagement, talk, Scotland’s Flood Risk Management conference (UK)
2017: Art, geography & socionatures; talk, The New Cultural Geography Conference XIV, (IE)
Writing & publications
2024: (forthcoming) Gathering ecofeminist stories with Kateryna Hrushevska, East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies
2023: (forthcoming) Adonis vernalis dreamings: (re)making kin with a place, Society & Space Journal
2023: Kinship in our damaged land, Scottish Left Review
2022: We talked to fellow feminists from Ukraine about military aid, here’s what they told us, BLOCK Magazine, (EN)
2022: Why we as feminists must lobby for air defence for Ukraine?, Open Democracy, (EN)
2021: Feminism or death: what is ecofeminism and how it can change our future, Commons journal of social criticism, (UA)
2020: Practising non-hierarchical care structures in 12 situations (EN)
2020: Nature Theatre: reimagining socio-natural assemblages, (EN)
2019: Epoch of Anthropocene: climate is changing and what art has to do with it, Platforma,(UA)
2019: Creative partnerships for climate change, printed publication (UA)
2019: Climate Crisis Under the Lens of Socially Engaged Art Practices, Culture Bridges, (UA)
2019: Walking - one sense at a time, zine, writing and photography, publishing support by Compound Press (NZ)
2018: Playing the space: the walking tour as arts research, book chapter together with Alex Bonham, Research in the Arts (ES)
2018: Walking, one sense at a time #smell, Arts in Action, Depot Art Space (NZ)
2013: Education for sustainable development, chapter contribution (UA)
Media mentions & interviews
2023: Climate change: Want to help Scotland prepare for its new climate? column, The Scotsman
2020: Noticing the ecological crisis: 10 art works about our planet being destroyed; mention, Ukrainska Pravda (UA)
2019: Artivism: the power of art against climate change, Ukrainian Radio, interview, (UA)
2019: Behind climate strikes in Ukraine; mention, Global Climate Strike
2018: Walking, playing, paying attention, Festival of Architecture (NZ)
2018: Walking with your senses, interview, Radio New Zealand (NZ)
Other work & projects
2018 – now: Sniffer, Climate resilience manager, leading place-based & transformational creative practices projects, incl. CreaTures, Adaptation Scotland; Scotland & international
2017: labconcepts, coordinating sustainability events; Berlin, Germany
2015 – 2017: Cultural Geography working group, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, student assistant
2014 – 2015: School for Civic Environmental Activists, co-coordinator, Kyiv, Ukraine
2011 – 2014: Let’s do it Ukraine, government relations coordinator, Kyiv, Ukraine