Vinyl Revival — Ukrainian Music Industry in the Era of Independence

The upcoming exhibition focuses on the revival of the vinyl format in the Ukrainian music industry after 1991 and especially after the Revolution of Dignity in 2014. The centre of the exposition is contemporary Ukrainian bands actively releasing their albums on vinyl: DakhaBrakha with folk experiments, Okean Elzy with rock classics, Onuka with electronic Ukrainian poetics, The Hardkiss with stadium sound. A separate section is dedicated to independent Ukrainian labels that revived vinyl pressing culture: Moon Records and other small Kyiv, Lviv, and Kharkiv studios producing limited-run author pressings. The exhibition also shows the evolution of the vinyl festival movement in Ukraine — from the first attempts of the 2000s to today's large-scale events where collectors, musicians and listeners intersect in a living cultural field. The exposition returns the viewer to the image of a full circle: from the first shellac recordings of Krushelnytska and Koshyts in the 1900s-1920s through Soviet control and restrictions to the full freedom of vinyl production in independent Ukraine. Curators emphasise: the return of Ukrainian musicians to the vinyl format is an act of cultural sovereignty, returning the material form of musical heritage into one's own hands.