Stories and Hopes of the Arrivals to Rhine-Main Archipelago

Leseraum: Ecocide in Ukraine

We are inviting you to the Nearby Reading Room of our common journey. The text that we would like to read together in June is by Darya Tsymbalyuk: ECOCIDE IN UKRAINE: THE ENVIRONMENTAL COST OF RUSSIA’S WAR Darya will also join us for nearby-discussion. The discussion will be in English.

A war is a deep-cut rupture not only in human lives, but also in the environment. A war makes a land unlivable and breaks the notion of time as it deems the future impossible. What remains of the homeland? What remains of the land? Tsymbalyuk’s book blends together a thorough study of Russia’s warfare strategies, deliberately destroying Ukraine’s ecosystems and habitats, and a deeply personal account of lives in all shapes and forms being continuously lost.

The reading format: always nearby and usually online.

The frame is open:

• each reads the text independently, partial readings are possible
• each brings to the meeting an association (nearbyness) with the text we have read. It can be anything: poetry, image, video, manifesto, toy, object, your body... anything
• we are discussing collectively our nearbyness-associations.

The online reading sessions build on the outcomes of the workshops “Stories and Hopes of the Arrivals to Rhine-Main Archipelago” (May 2026) and continue within the framework of the program “Reading Room: The Metamorphosis of Arrivals and Hosts.”

Over the following months, we will read and discuss five texts that move through the pluriverse of migrations, exiles, diasporas, displacement, memory, belonging, homelands, (destroyed) environments, embodied knowledge, and sensory memories—with a particular focus on food as a carrier of memory and storytelling.

Reading Schedule

• 20 June 2026: Ecocide in Ukraine: The Ecological Costs of Russia’s War
• 25 July 2026: Aral: Untold Stories Before, During, and After the Sea
• 15 August 2026: Food, Culture, and Cultural Heritage
• 5 September 2026: Open Veins of Latin America
• 3 October 2026: TBA

Please note: The reading sessions and subsequent discussions will take place online via Zoom. To register and receive the access link, please send a short email to de.colonialanguage@gmail.com.

The main language of the discussions will be English. At the same time, multilingual facilitation will be provided to enable participation in different languages.

Darya Tsymbalyuk is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago, and a multidisciplinary artist. In her research, she explores environmental humanities through the lens of decolonial and migration studies, focusing mainly on the displacement (hi)stories and narratives from Ukraine.

The de_colonialanguage collective and Ani Menua (X3 PostOst Agency, PostOstCafe) bring together expertise in the fields of art, activism, and research within the context of migration processes and alternative knowledge production. They conduct transcultural work with diaspora communities and develop formats that combine public space, collective, and artistic practice. Organization of Online-Readings: Manca Arnuš