Ukrainians and Black Americans: Our Different Struggles. Oksana Briukhovetska in Conversation with Marci Shore

The conversation focused on the newly published book in Ukraine, “Black Lives Matter Voices” by Oksana Briukhovetska. The book, based on her research in the United States in 2020-2021 during the largest protests in US history, was created for a Ukrainian audience. In more than two dozen conversations with African Americans and their allies sharing their stories, the question of possible solidarity between those fighting for freedom in different parts of the world emerged. The author believes that Ukraine’s turbulent history grounds a sensitivity to other forms of oppression worldwide and that a meaningful conversation on Ukrainian decoloniality should share this awareness. A year later, Russia attacked Ukraine, and the bloody genocidal war has now marked its fourth anniversary. Ukraine, seeking support from the United States, faces betrayal today. Amid entangled geopolitical constellations, and in the midst of terror and loss, how different struggles can intersect, and how the sharing of their experiences can be mutually empowering? While translating the stories of Black Americans into Ukrainian, Oksana Briukhovetska introduced a new vocabulary to her native language, in which “Blackness” breaks through the rigid stereotypes. She also contributed to the book as an artist, and shared some examples of her artistic practice elaborating on cross-border solidarity.

 

Speaker biography:

Oksana Briukhovetska is a writer, artist and researcher from Kyiv, Ukraine. Her practice and interests include feminist work, war trauma, race and racialisation, transnational connections through storytelling and the craft of textile. She holds an MFA degree from the University of Michigan and participates in art exhibitions internationally. In 2020 she was in the United States, witnessed Black Lives Matter protests in New Orleans, LA, and began working on the book by interviewing people across the US. She writes on Ukrainian contemporary art and was a part of the Visual Culture Research Center in Kyiv, from 2009 to 2019, contributing to curatorial and research projects. She is the co-editor (with Lesia Kulchynska) of a collection of interviews “The Right to Truth. Conversations on Art and Feminism” (2019), the editor of a collection featuring projects by women artists working in Ukraine during wartime, “Meaning after Loss” (2025), and the author of the book “Black Lives Matter Voices” (Choven, 2025).