Art Goes Underground in Zaporizhzhia as GOGOLFEST Returns 30 Km From Frontline

The international contemporary art festival GOGOLFEST Pokrova will take place in Zaporizhzhia from October 1 to 4, with most of its program moving underground in response to the security conditions of the frontline city.

Recognized among Europe’s five leading festivals by the EFFE Awards, the event will hold 95% of its program in underground venues to avoid disruptions from air attacks.

This year’s Zaporizhzhia edition, titled TimeCode, will explore Ukraine’s past, present, and future through a program spanning theater, music, performance, digital art, and public discussions.

At the center of the festival will be Futurum, a large-scale performance directed by Vladyslav Troitskyi that will connect 15 underground schools across Zaporizhzhia through a live digital broadcast.

“Holding the largest contemporary art festival 30 kilometers from the frontline in Zaporizhzhia today means developing practical tools for safe interaction for a new generation instead of allowing Ukrainian cultural life to be paralyzed, as our enemy wants,” GOGOLFEST Program Director Anna Basova said.

She added that the project would create a precedent by connecting the city’s underground educational spaces into a single digital network for one evening. Together with Ukrainian theater director Vladyslav Troitskyi and Ukrainian band DakhaBrakha, children living under the daily threat of Russian attacks will explore a new form of technological art, while the project could serve as a model for safely engaging young audiences in cultural activities in frontline communities.

The festival’s theater program will likewise take place in protected spaces. DakhTrio will present the Ukrainian premiere of the chamber opera Skovoroda. Shevchenko. Stus, which combines academic, folk, and rock influences. According to organizers, most of the compositions based on works by Ukrainian poets Vasyl Stus and Hryhorii Skovoroda will be performed on stage for the first time.

The international program will include Swiss performer Madeleine Bongard’s Be My Margaret! (or in the strangeness of loneliness), a solo production based on interviews with French writer Marguerite Duras. Following 39 performances across Europe in English and French, the production will be presented in Ukrainian for the first time.

The underground music program will focus on contemporary Ukrainian electronic and experimental music. SI Process, the electronic project of drummer and sound producer Stanislav Ivashchenko from the Brave! Factory community, will present a special program adapted to the acoustics of shelters. Ukrainian musician Stas Koroliov and director Anastasiia Vesna will also present a collaborative experimental project combining alternative music, songwriting, and performance.

Beyond its artistic program, GOGOLFEST Pokrova will host discussions and workshops featuring analysts, urban planners, architects, and sociologists. Topics will include the transformation and postwar reconstruction of public spaces in frontline communities, strengthening local communities during crises, and the future of Zaporizhzhia.

The program will also feature The Future. Zaporizhzhia After, a panel bringing together local leaders, architects, and international experts.

The festival comes as Ukrainian cultural projects continue to adapt to the realities of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Ukrainian documentary Landing, which follows a skateboarding community in the frontline city of Okhtyrka, has been selected for the official program of the international SUOMFORNIA film festival in Helsinki, Finland.

The film chronicles the community’s efforts to establish “Krytka,” Okhtyrka’s first indoor skatepark, in 2024 amid the full-scale war.

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