From Iron Curtain to Inner Vision: Psychedelics, Spiritual Awakening, and Political Imagination in Ukrainian Art after the Fall of Communism

PhD project

This project explores the intersections of art, spirituality, and altered states of consciousness in post-Soviet Ukraine. It examines how the discovery and use of psychedelic substances among artists of the Ukrainian New Wave in the 1990s shaped a unique aesthetic of transgression, introspection, and spiritual experimentation. Drawing on archival research, interviews, and visual analysis, the dissertation situates Ukraine’s psychedelic revival within the broader context of post-communist cultural transformation. It argues that these explorations of consciousness not only redefined artistic practices but also offered alternative models of freedom and political imagination in a society emerging from decades of ideological control.