Mykolaiv Young Photography

About

MYPH (Mykolaiv Young Photography) - the school, collective, and gallery, was founded in 2018 by Sergey Melnitchenko in his hometown of Mykolaiv, Ukraine. It now has more than 100 students and participants from all over Ukraine and abroad. MYPH has organized or participated in more than twenty-five projects (exhibitions, festivals, fairs, etc.) in Ukraine, Poland, Italy, France, Austria, Hungary, Netherlands, the USA, and Norway since 2018, garnering critical acclaim along the way. Together, CultureVerse and MYPH bring an exhibit of photography and 3D immersive technology that poignantly brings home the power of art, beauty, and creation to persist even as the horrors of war rage on in Ukraine.

Together, CultureVerse and MYPH present an exhibit of photography and technology that poignantly brings home the power of art, beauty, and creation to persist even as the horrors of war rage on in Ukraine. The true power of the exhibit emerges from our re-creation of the atmosphere of a memorable MYPH exhibit in Kyiv in 2020 when the gallery opened in the midst of a massive Russian missile attack during which one of the power plants was destroyed leading to a partial black-out in the city. Despite the total darkness, the exhibition was conducted with all participants and the audience bringing their own light-sources (phone, night lamps, etc). This created a unique atmosphere of closeness and changed the dynamic of perceiving art. Bringing the format of the art exhibition in darkness with personal light-sources to the US brings the context of the war closer and, facilitates an intimate connection and, at the same time, invokes the metaphor of your own light as your only means to perceive beauty in the dark.

The exhibition consists of a traditional photo gallery with framed photographic prints paired with a virtual gallery created using the SaganWorks 3D immersive platform. The virtual gallery contains artwork from the show, along with more art from MYPH and videos from the artists. The virtual gallery provides more walls for the physical gallery and can be viewed below.