Platform TU's mission is promoting human rights, freedoms, and critical thinking through grassroots cultural initiatives and modern arts. Activities include organizing and curating art events: art residencies, exhibitions, concerts, book presentations, performances, film screenings, and smart events: discussions, lectures, researches, open talks. Existing projects include a series of residencies: “Z.mist” combines research and art, “Woven network” explores invisible womens’ work through creative responses of European female artists, “Decom” is aimed to reflect on the decommunization process in Ukraine and memory.

A wide range of themes, including memory and commemoration practices, inclusivity, discrimination, critical thinking, human rights and freedoms, decommunization, freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, violence and radicalism, local identities, right to the public space, gender issues, paternalism are addressed within the organization.

Platform TU has experience in organizing and curating its own art residencies in Mariupol for Ukrainian artists, co-curated by filmmaker and researcher Sasha Protyah: “Z.mist” in 2017 and “Z.mist: Identity” in 2018. In 2017, the residency welcomed 10 artists for 10 days, while in 2018 it lasted 20 days with 13 artists. Residents were chosen through an open call among about 100 applicants with the help of an invited independent jury consisting of art experts, artists, cultural managers, and curators from Ukraine and Europe.

The focus of every residency is researching and reflecting on the multiple identities of Mariupol, from industry, ecology and post-communism to war, patriotism, and radicalism. Artists from a vast range of media, from street art and experimental music, to photography and media art gather around these themes. Alexey Salmanov, Daniil Galkin, Alina Yakubenko, Ksenia Hnylytska, Valentina Petrova, Volodymyr Kuznetsov, AntiGonna, Serhiy Sommer, and other established and emerging artists have been hosted.

Every time the residency program has included research tours, connecting events with community, getting acquainted with local context, visiting local institutions – from museums to metal steel plants, and other events. Also, during the residency, invited experts held presentations of their works, and every participant had an artist talk in Platform TU. Residents were free to use the space and equipment of our platform as well as our volunteers as personal guides. Every event was open to the public. As a result, we have had the final presentation and the opening of the exhibition in Platform TU.

When physical mobility of artists became drastically constrained in 2020, “Woven network” , a virtual international art residency has been curated and organized. It is a 6-month virtual art residence for female artists from five European countries across 3 time zones exploring the theme of invisible work and reinventing the hierarchic digital web to a real horizontal network. It explores and reevaluates new opportunities for artistic expression and cross-border collaboration and the use of digital tools, materials, and the practice of distanced collaboration through the creative work of three female artists from Ukraine and four from Sweden, Scotland, Poland, and England. The project has started in July 2020.