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Antarctica - Shall we say the walk is cancelled?

Antarctica - Shall we say the walk is cancelled? A synchronised walking project in Berlin, Kyiv and Reading.

571 Oxford Road Gallery presents Shall we say the walk is cancelled?, an exhibition that brings together traces, echoes, and documentation from a synchronised walking project that unfolded across three cities on 29 June 2025. At 12:00 Berlin time, three artist-led groups began a simultaneous psychohistorical journey: in Berlin (Mittelheide), led by Harri Kraievets; in Kyiv (Pushcha-Vodytsia), led by Teta Tsybulnyk; and in Reading (Lousehill Copse), led by Pavlo Kerestey. Though walking in separate locations and time zones, the groups moved in synchrony, oriented westward, and holding the presence of each other in mind, as if walking through three landscapes at once.

The image of Antarctica, the last territory on Earth governed collectively by scientists, served as a symbolic framework for the walks. It offered an imagined space for exploring new forms of community, language, and memory At 14:55 Berlin time (13:55 in Reading; 15:55 in Kyiv), the groups connected, not through digital technology, but by singing a shared score, enacting a fleeting, intuitive synchronisation across distance.

Each city’s walk became a form of research:

– In Kyiv, participants engaged in free association, collective dreaming, psychotic speech, and sound improvisation, exploring the unconscious landscape of Pushcha-Vodytsia.

– In Berlin, the group worked with psychohistorical texts, schizoanalytic tools, and bodily unbinding from language to construct a shared imaginary.

– In Reading, words, gestures, and fragments were gathered — traces that speak for untold stories — culminating in a temporary mosaic installation assembled in the forest at Lousehill Copse.

Documentation took many forms: analogue photography, video, sound recordings, note-taking, and even plant collecting. One week later, the groups met again, each in their own place, but at the same time, to reflect on their shared, dispersed encounter.

The exhibition features a constellation of materials drawn from the walks: sound and film works, texts, maps, and artefacts. Shall we say the walk is cancelled? invites visitors to consider walking as a form of speculative connection, a way to inhabit multiple places at once, to listen to silence, and to speak across distance.

The impossible meeting between the three groups was made possible by the “scattered communities” “розсіяне засіяне” residency program with kind support of Asortymentna Kimnata /Асортиментнa кімнатa, Ivano Frankivsk, Insha Osvita / Іншa Освітa, Robert Bosch Stiftung, Goethe Institut Ukraine, Kyiv Biennial / Visual Culture Centre, Ukrainian Institute Germany, Office Ukraine Austria, Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej w Warszawie, zuza, commit and MitOst e.V.

Exhibition Opening:

Friday 18 July from 3 pm. to 6 pm.

Opening Times:

18 July 2025 →22 August 2025

by appointment

Where to find us:

This event is at 571 Oxford Road, Reading. Public transport is available from Reading town center and Reading station if you are visiting from elsewhere.

Where to find us

This event is at 571 Oxford Road, Reading. Public transport is available from Reading town center and Reading station if you are visiting from elsewhere.