Framework

Maria Lanko (b. 1986) is an independent curator, critic and PhD researcher at Aberdeen University. She graduated from the National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv, department of Eastern studies with MA in Japanese studies. Since 2005 she has worked as projects coordinator and communications manager at institutions in Ukraine including Karas Gallery, EIDOS Arts Development Foundation, and Ya Gallery art centre. She has completed the internship program at Peggy Guggenheim Collection Museum in Venice in 2009, curatorial residency at Node Centre for Curatorial Studies in Berlin in 2011 and participated in Moscow curatorial summer school in 2014.

From 2012 to 2014 she was participant of the Curatorial Platform educational program at PinchukArtCentre. Within its framework she co-curated public program at the solo shows of Jeff Wall, Gary Hume, Anish Kapoor, Chapman Brothers, Tony Oursler as well as at group exhibitions of PinchukArtCentre Prize and Future Generation Art Prize. She also co-curated PinchukArtCentre’s project space exhibitions — solo shows of Monika Zawadski, Nicolas Grospierre and Oleksiy Salmanov.

Since 2014 she has worked with Lizaveta German as curatorial collective. Together they launched openarchive.com.ua, online platform that functions as an instrument of their curatorial research and an open database. They curated such exhibitions as “If only flies saw the show does it mean that it actually happed” at Another Vacant Space, Berlin, “Power Verticals Plywood Colonnades” at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Kyiv, “Pavshyno Kunstverein” at Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe and “Art Of the Ukrainian Sixties” at the National Art Museum of Ukraine, Kyiv among others. In her research she focuses on collective practices in late Soviet and post-Soviet art as a strategy of participation and self-institutionalization.