
The Muzychi Expanded History project
The Muzychi Expanded History project is a private residency program supported and organized by the artist Alevtina Kakhidze. It is taking place in the village of Muzychi, an hour away from Kyiv with public transportation. The studio and accommodation of the resident are personally lent by Alevtina Kakhidze, residency coordinator and neighbor. Due to the qualities of the residency location and context, no specific project or exhibition is expected from the resident, although the program is open to any kind of initiatives and ideas. The resident biography and work will also be included in the book to be published ‘Expanded History of Muzychi, a history of the residencies in Muzychi through the years.
The whole concept of the residency program is that Alevtina lends her own studio for the period of the artist’s stay, working in this period of time from the house next door. Alevtina's personal items are hidden inside the furniture, which consists of wooden cubes and a storage-bed, for the comfort of the resident not to be surrounded with them.
There are three Central Asian Shepherd dogs in the area. Residents can receive a small workshop on request about how to behave with and befriend them. In case of someone having fear of dogs, there is an additional exit to a residential house, which does not allow the residents to encounter them again. They are loud and audible, and in Ukrainian villages people have dogs outside.
It is not required to create something particular to be done within the context of the place where the artist is staying. Residents are invited just for their presence – just to be themselves, just to be in Muzychi – to respond to the general idea of The Muzychi Expanded History project. The residents are assisted in communication with the local context during their stay. If there is an idea, a project or research initiative to be realized, the organization provides help to realize.
1 studio for the artist/curator
The studio has two rooms: one room can be for living and the second for work. There is water, a shower and a toilet, furniture, a small kitchen, internet and electricity. There is a bike donated to the program by the first resident of the program — Stefka Ammon from Germany. Only 1 resident can be hosted at once. Therefore, only individual artists are eligible to apply. However, guests can be hosted for 1-2 days.
Presence of scanner, printer, and opportunity to work with the personal archive of artist Alevtina Kakhidze
Muzychi is a village near Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. Travel time to Kyiv is 40 minutes and the bus stop is a 20 minute walk from the studio. The buses Muzychi-Kyiv-Muzychi go every 25 minutes. The ticket costs 20 grn (0,7 Euro) each way. They run until 11 PM. There is no cash machine in Muzychi and no currency exchange booth here. But in Kyiv, residents can find them on almost every corner. There is a few food stores in the village where one can find basically everything, but the variety is not so great. The staff informs residents when they go to the supermarket in the city. Once a week there is a farmer’s market in the village.