Participatory exhibition hangout
Saturday, 28 November 2026, 6:30 pm
Project Room SCCA, Metelkova 6, Ljubljana
Featuring works by: Nikolay Karabinovych @karabinovych.today, INAKSHE @inakshe_group, Ira Lupu@iralupu, Ruslan Tremba @ruslantremba, Situational flowerbeds collective @situa_klumb, Anna Potyomkina @anapotyomkina and Ksenia Pohrebennyk @mokri.ochi, Stanislav Turina @stanislavturina.am.fm.
Curator Alona Karavai is 2026 Igor Zabel Award Grant recipient.
How many paradoxes can you cram into a single moment? If empathy is a vibe, how many contradictions can it actually hold before it breaks?
»unboxing« is a conversation, a hangout, and a participatory exhibition where we unpack artworks together. It’s a space to talk about art, life, and the radically different ways we experience war and the endless »everything everywhere all at once« of it all (looking at the Russian war against Ukraine, but honestly, it applies to so much more).
Migration, military service, resistance and resistance fatigue, ghosted connections, identity crises, trying to function while the world is actively shrinking, life, death, and more death — seems like we are all tired from being forced into this endless cycle of post-traumatic growth. But here’s the plot twist — art has a weird way of making at least some sense of it all, and people have an even weirder capacity to find joy and (dark) humor in darker times.
So, we’re inviting you to help us unpack a box of 6 artworks that cultural worker Alona Karavai brought from Ukraine. Together, we’ll unbox the box, chat about the artworks, and manifest an exhibition situation right on the spot. It’ll be a short-lived situation, because let’s be real — experiences are fluid, solidarity is situational, and everyone’s personal «box» depends on the context.
White gloves will be provided!
Alona Karavai is a Ukrainian cultural worker, curator, and essayist. She co-founded project space Asortymentna kimnata, of residency house Khata-Maysternya and publishing project ilostmylibrary. She fled Donetsk in 2014 when her workplace, Izolyatsia, was seized and turned into an illegal prison. Since 2022, she has managed urgent art evacuations of non-musefied art archives, residencies for displaced and mobilized artists, as well educational laboratories like School of contemporary art fra fra fra. European cultural KAIROS Prize laureate in 2023, Woman in Arts prize laureate in the category “Cultural management and curation” in 2026, Igor Zabel Price (Working grant) in 2026. She is based in Kyiv and is currently piloting the annual arts and community Festival of Death in Kyiv as well as working on participatory curation format unboxing. (Photo: Sofiia Sirenko)