In 1955, in the city of Donetsk, on Svetly Put Street, a factory of insulating materials, called Izolatsiya (Insulation) was put into operation.
From the 1960s, the Insulation factory became one of the main industrial centers of the Donbass. This will continue until the collapse of the Soviet Union and the creation of an independent Ukraine. The factory becomes private property, Ukraine experiences powerful upheavals and revolutions. The factory stops.
The daughter of the last Soviet director of the factory, buys the walls of the dead workshops and transforms them into an art center, which retains its old name, namely Insulation. For several years, the Art Center has become famous not only in Ukraine, but also in Europe. It seems that everything was going well, but in 2014 the war in the Donbass begins. The Art Center is seized by the separatists and set up as a torture centre.
The third period of Insulation's life is that of a concentration camp. Those who managed to escape from the torture chambers recount horrors comparable to what happened in the Nazi camps. Works of contemporary art that remained on Insulation were declared degenerate art and destroyed. Residents of Donetsk walk along Svetly Put Street as if there is a leper colony there.
The story of Insulation mirrors the story of Ukraine, which is following a difficult path to becoming a new democratic state. Overcoming difficulties, protecting its borders, building a judicial system, the country survives, despite attacks and crises.
