Translation Spotlight: Ukraine, Looking at History

On Friday, January 9 at 6:30 p.m., join us for a special edition of our Translation Spotlight series — Ukraine — presented in partnership with Maple Hope Foundation.

Not a typical literary talk, you’ll be gathered around our long table for a chance to taste traditional Ukrainian food and drink, participate in discussion, and learn about writers who carry both ancestral history and the immediacy of invasion into their work.

Guided by Svitlana Matviyenko (Associate Professor of Critical Media Analysis at SFU) and Alina Senchenko (Ukrainian Canadian artist and curator), we’ll explore remarkable works of translated prose and poetry that trace the twisted routes of intimate and collective histories, asking how some events persist in memory while others are erased, obscured, or slip through the cracks of remembrance. All of these works bear witness to Russia’s ongoing invasion, and open a human-centred dialogue on how literature can help carry impossible stories.

You’ll leave with a specially curated reading list of Ukrainian writers to explore, and selected books will be available for purchase.

Our Translation Spotlight events are intimate and open to a limited amount of participants. To support our non-profit programming and to help us cover costs, this event is $30. Spots go quickly, so please RSVP here.

More about Maple Hope Foundation: Maple Hope Foundation emerged from the global Ukrainian volunteer movement in 2014, which began in response to the Euromaidan in Kyiv. Their founding members first connected during the solidarity marches held in Vancouver nine years ago and their mission is to support displaced Ukrainians in Canada and Ukrainians on the ground in their response and resistance to Russia’s unprovoked invasion.

Alina Senchenko is a Ukrainian Canadian artist and curator. Since 2011, she has resided in Vancouver on the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. In 2015, she graduated from Emily Carr University of Art and Design, majoring in photography. Currently she is MFA candidate at Washington University in St. Louis. Her work explores the complexity of her immigrant identity, belonging and displacement within her own experience and globally. Additionally, her work deals with memory, diasporas, stereotypes, oral histories and reflection on recent events in Ukraine and worldwide. She is especially invested in questioning historical narratives through the act of recording stories and bearing witness.

Svitlana Matviyenko is an Associate Professor of Critical Media Analysis in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. Her research, informed by science and technology studies and the history of science, focuses on practices of disinformation, cyberwar, popular mobilization, critical infrastructure studies, psychoanalysis of Lacan, postcolonial and decolonial theory. Matviyenko’s current work is on nuclear cultures and heritage, nuclear colonialism, technogenic catastrophes, and — most recently — the weaponization of pollution and practices of nuclear terror during the Russian war in Ukraine and in broader geopolitical contexts. She is an expert on political economy and cultural logics of cyberwarfare; political ecology of war and the environmental history of warfare.

More about Upstart & Crow:

Upstart & Crow is a not-for-profit creative studio and literary incubator that champions writers, readers and stories, and the role they play in shaping our lives. We develop original programs, support artists and revel in creative projects focused on Literature In Translation / Climate Solutions / Poetry / Civic Dialogue / Community & Skills Building … all with the aim of elevating the role of literature and storytelling in our lives. Find us on Granville Island, Gibsons and online at upstartandcrow.com.

Accessibility:

The main studio of our shop is accessible for folks with mobility aids. There is a washroom on the main floor available for attendees.

Questions: hello[at]upstartandcrow.com.