Join us at e-flux Screening Room on Saturday, October 25 at 7pm for “Swamps, Steppes and Souvenirs,” a screening program presented by Kyiv to LA and hosted by the Ukrainian Cultural Festival in collaboration with e-flux. The program presents six shorts films by Ukrainian artists Daryna Mamaisur, Oleksiy Radynski, Darya Tsymbalyuk, and ruїns collective (Teta Tsybulnyk and Elias Parvulesco) that explore the vastness of Ukraine’s ecology and the powers—both real and imagined—that have shaped its landscape. Unearthing deeply layered histories and personal narratives, the films address Russian imperialism, western romanticization, and memories rooted in loss and discovery. The screening will be followed by a conversation with the artists and Kyiv to LA curator.
Films
Daryna Mamaisur, a steppe with rabbits and pheasants running around, and where some even saw foxes. part 2 (2020, 10 minutes)
ruïns collective, Endless Sea of Sand (2023, 5 minutes)
ruïns collective, Salty Oscillations (2021, 6 minutes)
ruïns collective, Zong (2019, 9 minutes)
Darya Tsymbalyuk, botanical documentation of existence (2023, 5:49)
Darya Tsymbalyuk, To the South (2025, 7 minutes)
Oleksiy Radynski, Where Russia Ends (2024, 25 minutes)
Conversation with Darya Tsymbalyuk and and Ursula K.Heise.
From Kyiv to Los Angeles, we have witnessed how environmental destruction has dramatically altered our understanding of home, place and belonging. To trace ways in which ecological grief is echoed and reckoned with across these different contexts, the Thomas Mann House- which recently reopened after the devastating Palisades Fire- presents a conversation between Darya Tsymbalyuk (University of Chicago) and Ursula Heise (UCLA). The conversation will open with Tsymbalyuk briefly introducing her recent book Ecocide in Ukraine: The Environmental Cost of Russia’s War (Polity, 2025) and sharing poignant accounts of witnessing ecocide in her homeland of Ukraine. Drawing connections between Ukrainian experiences, the scarred lands of the Pacific Palisades, and beyond, Tsymbalyuk and Heise will discuss the loss of cherished places and examine the role of storytelling and cultural imaginations in ways of inhabiting the damaged Earth.
Darya Tsymbalyuk is an interdisciplinary researcher whose work lies at the intersection of environmental humanities and artistic research. She serves as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and the Committee on Environment, Geography, and Urbanization (CEGU), University of Chicago and is the author of the book Ecocide in Ukraine: The Environmental Cost of Russia’s War (Polity, 2025). Her scholarly texts have been published by Nature Human Behaviour, Narrative Culture, Antennae: Journal of Nature in Visual Culture, and her public-facing writing appeared in BBC Future Planet, openDemocracy, The Funambulist, KAJET, amongst others. In addition to writing, Tsymbalyuk works with images through drawing, painting, collage, and film essays.
Ursula K. Heise is Distinguished Professor in the Department of English and the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA, and co-founder of the Lab for Environmental Narrative Strategies (LENS). Her research and teaching focus on the environmental humanities; contemporary environmental literature, arts, and cultures in the Americas, Germany, Japan, Spain, and Vietnam; literature and science; science fiction; and narrative theory. Her most recent book, a co-edited essay collection on Environment and Narrative in Vietnam, was published in 2024. She is currently at work on a book entitled “Reclaiming Ecotopia: Science Fiction and Environmental Futures.”