Selected concepts of the Antonin Artaud Fellowship 2026
In July 2026, the open call for the Antonin Artaud Fellowship 2026 was launched.
A total of 62 applications were received, from which three concepts were selected. The authors will receive financial, organizational, and mentorship support, rehearsal space, and video documentation. The work-in-progress presentations will take place this September and October in Kyiv.
Mariia Bohomolova and Eduard Balula
Concept: “Spectre of Victory”
The work addresses the phenomenon of the chupacabra in Ukrainian internet folklore as a mirror of collective anxieties, where people seek to discern a mystical harbinger of good news in a sick, exhausted beast. The emergence of this image stems from present uncertainty and precarity that lack space in everyday reality, leading them to be projected onto an accidental creature. As a result, the chupacabra becomes a vessel for unconscious fears and unprocessed emotions, revealing shifts that have already taken place in the collective consciousness but have yet to be fully realized.
Anastasiia Shvydenko
Concept: “Terrifying, how much I want to live; Terrifying, I don’t wanna die”
The piece explores the existential fear of death and its link to the fear of truly living and acting. Engaging with wartime threats, social inhibitions, and prejudices, the artist equates everyday phobias with metaphorical or physical dying, stripping them of abstraction.
Anna Nykytiuk
Concept: “Keening”
The work reflects on the experience of grief and the divide between the need to accept the fact of death and the inability to remain silent about the pain of loss and despair. The author explores weeping as an acoustic mode of witnessing, capable of holding the cascading impact of loss and the multiplicity of victims that every single death brings. As a result, this practice moves beyond the limits of personal pain and turns into a keening for the very world where life has ended up under constant threat.
How does the selection work? The jury panel evaluates all concepts according to the criteria outlined in the open call. Based on the scores, a ranking is created. After that, the Fellowship team speaks with the applicants who received the highest scores and makes the final decision.
The applications were evaluated by:
- Roza Sarkisian — theatre director and curator
- Catherine Kyrsenko — creator of the media outlet “Ostap Terevenyt”
- Olga Diatel — performing arts producer, co-founder of the Antonin Artaud Fellowship, and producer of Opera aperta
- Yuliia Parysh — coordinator of the Antonin Artaud Fellowship and Opera aperta
- Volodymyr Burkovets — co-founder of the Antonin Artaud Fellowship, performing arts producer, and serviceman
- Alona Karavai — curator, co-founder of the Asortymentna Kimnata gallery
This edition of the Fellowship open call is implemented by proto produkciia foundation and is a winner of the Per Forma grant program developed by Kyiv Contemporary Music Days with the support of the Performing Arts Fund NL and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science of the Netherlands, aimed at developing the performing arts sector in Ukraine. #PerFormaKCMD