Reading Group with Yaroslava Strikha

On Friday, November 21, at 6:30 PM, we invite you to spend the evening with our Reading Group — a space for conversation, reflection, and discovering new points of connection between texts, art, and personal experience.

This time, together with literary scholar and moderator Yaroslava Strikha, we will discuss Anna Gruver’s novel Nerukhomist (2025) and explore how its themes resonate with the exhibition Certain Future Evidence — a project by Open Group (Yuriy Biley, Pavlo Kovach, Anton Varga).

During the meeting:

• we will discuss Anna Gruver’s new novel and the works of Open Group, looking for connections and uncovering new layers of meaning;
• reflect on memory and power — and try to find answers to what exactly is preserved in our memory and why;
• share personal stories, associations, and impressions.

“Nerukhomist is an ambiguous title, and it’s not just about property. It’s also (or maybe primarily — I’ll leave that for you to decide) about a dangerous state — stillness, numbness, slumber. A state that can be so hard, sometimes impossible, to escape. For me, it was essential to capture this fading reality buried under the news flow — this moment of fracture within society. To capture and comprehend it.”
— Anna Gruver

Moderator:

Yaroslava Strikha — translator and literary scholar. She has translated works by Julian Barnes, A.S. Byatt, Don DeLillo, Kate Atkinson, Art Spiegelman, Paul Auster, Henry Thoreau, and many other British and American authors. She earned her PhD (2017) and taught at Harvard University.

Participation is free with prior registration.
The number of seats is limited.

Come to discover new meanings together, talk about what matters, and feel how literature and art can help us see familiar things in a new light.