In our fast-paced and fragmented world, many strive to articulate the essence of the present. But what unites these attempts? How do we describe the era we live in?
Unstable. Fractured. Chaotic.
Linear narratives no longer hold: step A rarely leads to step B. We are flooded with shifting information. Shared values lose their clarity. Control is fleeting.
Anthology of Uncertainty began in 2024 as a curatorial residency at La maison de l’ours in Paris. Its initial focus was on the re-emergence of decolonial conversations in Europe after 24 February 2022, and in how Ukraine’s cultural presence had long existed outside dominant narratives. The project recognised the full-scale invasion not as a sudden rupture, but as a continuation of historical pressure, disinformation, and erasure. Against this background, Anthology of Uncertainty emerged as a space for rethinking how Ukrainians experience instability politically, socially and personally, and how this condition shapes both artistic and everyday life.
Depending on the context and topic, different forms of expression call for different techniques. The project includes film screenings, artist talks, presentations, public discussions, a conférence-performance, workshops, and research-based formats, which together create a framework for gathering knowledge, materials and lived accounts. These formats make it possible to work with personal stories, memories and collective experience so that people can talk about their own states of uncertainty and find common ground in their experiences. The project takes shape through the participants, spaces and themes that emerge in the process.
The 2025 season sought to explore uncertainty across a deeper historical timescale and through the personal experiences of people from different social backgrounds, moving beyond a solely Ukrainian frame of reference. Future seasons will approach uncertainty from different perspectives and through collaboration with practitioners from across cultural fields.