 Welcome everybody here to Segal Talks at the Martini Segal Theodos under the Graduate Center CUNY we are in Midtown Manhattan at and it is another day of the war I think it's day 25 of the invasion, the illegal invasion of Russia into Ukraine. And today we have with us two artists from Berlin, Julia Strauss who will join us later we had a slight confusion about the summertime it is actually 5pm in Berlin now we invited her to come on at 6pm though and this is our our confusion but with us today. Today we have a great curator and thinker and writer Thomas Oberender from the Berlin Festival now working in big productions or museum pieces around Europe. Thomas thank you so much for joining in how are you and where are you. Thank you I'm back in Berlin. I was the last day in Copenhagen and I went by train and with me hundreds of refugees from Ukraine, moving from Berlin to Copenhagen. There are a lot remaining in Berlin. I think thousands and it will be every day more and more. So I'm back now but my thoughts are of course with these people and with my observations over there. So when you were on the train from Copenhagen back to Berlin, it was full of refugees and what was it like like war times actually people on the move and What do you see on the streets of Berlin and on your travels. Yeah I mean, I see of course like everywhere in Europe and probably also in New York. A lot of signs of solidarity with the people. I was impressed by the Dutch and also by the Danish people. They're welcomed in the train. The refugees with food and of course everywhere. They can use the trains and they're welcomed on the train station for free and there's a lot of support. I think many people try to do what they can. And I feel touched from the overcrowded train simply. I think we are in a very privileged situation here of course. If you see the mothers with the children and if you see the tiny luggage they have for completely start in a new life. I see really also great gestures of solidarity. Yeah, it is quite a shocking development. How are art institutions, how are theaters reacting in Berlin? Yes, there are huge public events. For example, this weekend on the Brandenburg tour, the wife of Vladimir Klitschko, the mayor of Kiev, did sing the Ukrainian songs as a gesture of solidarity and also thank you for the support. The German artists supported this. There was a huge reading and solidarity action a week before. There are everywhere in Germany demonstrations. It's a part of the public life right now. Also all the newspapers are giving a lot of space for experts, for interviews, long articles. I think it's the same in New York, of course. But I would say, for me personally, one artist comes back into my mind. It's Ilya Krzyzianowski, the director of the huge DAW project. He gave a very touching and intelligent interview 10 days ago in the Suddeutsche Zeitung, in which he describes that this terrible war, how it's connected with a Soviet history, with, let's say, the connection also to fascism. There was never a kind of evaluating the own history like the Germans had to do after World War II. In Russia, there is a continuity of elites. It's right now the KGB guy who's running the country, ruling the country in a way that is very old fashioned, brutal, and a system of fear. And for Krzyzianowski, it was the work he did with this amazing project that started, I think, in 2007, in Kharkiv, in Ukraine. They duplicated a former scientific institute in Moscow as a kind of copy, as a film set copy in Kharkiv. And over two and a half years, they lived about 400 people and started to reenact the history of the Soviet Union and Stalinism, basically, in this kind of secret society inside of this institute. And they filmed it. They filmed 700 hours of material, of relations between people who are not actors, who are scientists, artists, technicians, workers. All these people made a time travel back in 1938 and lived together in the fictional time until 1968. And they made this enormous time travel under conditions of living on an island. They did eat what people eat in this time. They had the same kind of haircut, the same kind of clothing, the same kind of debates. And so, I would say it's the artwork of this time that Ilya Krzyzianowski created because it's a kind of analysis of Stalinism and it's a kind of, let's say, psychoanalysis of the Soviet society and the following disasters until right now. So, for Krzyzianowski, I think what Putin does is a mixture of Hitler and Stalin's system. And it's very impressive to see these films and I hope that it will be presented on a large scale now all over the world. Ilya's ready for that, I think. No, it wasn't an impressive project. You tried also to present it in Berlin. It was also in Paris. It did not fully work out, but he really did ask about science and theatre and community and the vision for a future. We have Julia Strauss with us here. Julia, can you hear us? Yes, yes, I can. And I'm happy to hear you. Yeah, and Julia, I would like to apologize profoundly. We switched to summer hours. I know I told you 6 p.m. Berlin time, but it still was 5 p.m. Thomas jumped in with both of you, have collaborated together. Okay, maybe Thomas stays with us and we can hear from him is great work also is connected to York. I still have it here, the Down to Earth project, which we think was truly part of the future of institutions, of art, of engaged, socially engaged practice. And we would like to talk about this today. And Thomas was just talking a bit about the refugees on the trains and art projects that started in the Ukraine, also that Russia perhaps over the centuries has always been an authoritarian force, dictatorships that was about expanding empires instead of what someone said. If you really rule a country, whose songs do you sing? Whose books do you read? Whose art exhibitions do you go? That's the real power. It's actually not, in one sense, with a military might. And we are so sorry to witness this apocalyptic catastrophe. So I have one more question shortly for Thomas. The same to you also then to Julia. You wrote about also in the Down to Earth book about the Betriebs System, the operating system of institutions and institutions also very much in the Julius work. What does not only Corona, but what does this war means to the operating system of institutions? What is the change? We will see what has already changed and what does that new situation mean, Thomas? I think it depends on the place where you are, if you give the answer. I think for a country like the Ukraine, the main task is the survival of institutions. It's the survival of infrastructures, knowledge, archives, heritage. So institutions have a fundamental task in saving memory, saving articulation of what's going on in the society, giving shelter and giving space for independent thoughts. And I think we have to open up our understanding of what institutions are. That's why it's so wonderful that Julia is with us, because traditionally we think institutions are made by walls and bricks and big budgets. But we learned that institutions are basically home places for communities. And there are various ways of giving shelter to communities, giving voice to communities. And I think we have to understand that right now they're, for example, also in Belarus, we have the problem. How can institutions, independent liberal institutions, survive this dictatorship systems? And I think we are witnessing the growing of proxy institutions. Institutions, they are health, digital, virtual, and in another country, they have a home base that is really grounded in a city or in a place on Earth. And we see that our fantasy starts to grow, how institutions can be understood in future besides that guaranteed forms by a state. So I think Julia is a much more better person to describe these alternative modes of institutions. Yeah, we just had to talk at the Goethe Institute here in New York with Florian Maltzaker, Tanja Bruggera, and Claire Bischoff. And it was all about institutions, how to change them, what is the future, maybe should get in and out, but what happens if institutions are bombed? Like what happened in Mariupol with the Russia, you know, so is there completely new questions? But Julia, now welcome again here on Seagull Talk. Thank you, Thomas, and I hope you can stay with us. Please, please don't go by Julia. Let me tell you a little bit about her. She's a very significant European artist, someone who moves between Germany, Berlin, Greece, Athens, but also from native or native Russia. She is an artist. She's an activist. I would also say an educator and a multimedia sculpture who also very early on in since the 2000s created work for the in the digital realm. She was born in the Soviet Union as Mari. Do I say that right, Mari? Yes, Mari. And I'm very proud that this name, the name of our tribe, is now reaching the audio sphere of New York. It is one of Europe's last indigenous cultures with a shamanic tradition in the theater family. She came, she was born into, but she lives in Athens and Berlin, as I said, and her sculptures, paintings, performances, drawings, video, 3D work have been seen in solo and group exhibitions. For example, the Pergamon Museum, the Kropius Bau, with the Festspieler Tate Modern, the Tirana Biennale, Amsterdam, Athens Biennale, Kiev, Moscow Biennale, the ZKM, the Center for Art and Media and Culture, and also at the documentary. The documentary is coming back also this year. This is someone whose work people look to and look for questions, better questions to have, and perhaps also for some answers for new questions. And she was also the organizer of the Aftonomi Academy in Athens, people talk about it. Julia, how do you experience at the moment this time, not only of Corona, but of war? Well, these are lyral-less times, according to Plato. The times of war are times without the lyra, but we disagree with Plato and we constitute a completely different system of governance in which art partakes. Art plays an important role in this war, and art perhaps is only capable of telling the truth, saying, just saying it, not hesitating. We all feel something in the current situation is wrong, and I think art plays an important role in the society again. And this is why I have brought a reconstruction of an ancient Greek lyra to mourn the victims of the theater in Mariupol. Because if you look at it, it looks like an ancient Greek theater. And if you look at the situation in Ukraine, it is the artists who are doing the Maidan revolution. Not only, but significant part of this revolution is Julian Beck and Judith Molina, in the sense that they have turned theater into life. In the sense that they have been spending two months on the barricades in the middle of winter on Maidan Square. In the sense that people were shot from the windows of the Ukraine hotel, and nobody talks about them. What we, the entire world, the planetary community are listening to is, Oh, in the Maidan Square there were so many Nazis. And we don't talk about this being the idealistic project. This being the impulse of Europe. This small, small country peripheral Europe being actually that Europe that we have never become until now. And this was Maidan. And this is the role of art in the 21st century. Art is politics, and if it's necessary, art is military. If they would accept me now in the military defense army in Ukraine, I would go there immediately. But I think I would just rather disturb the processes. And that's why I'm not there yet. But this can change anytime. I'm serious about it, because the government are not able to understand that they are Putin, that dictatorship is in New York. Because the capitalism is complicit with this dictatorship. Tell me, the Russian saying says, tell me who are your friends, and I will tell you who you are. Bloody oil, stinky gas. Yeah, I think you are absolutely right. I think Ukraine, which is right now, right between the Eastern bloc as used to be the Western bloc, or as we now would say, between the idea of democracy and the authoritarian regimes that has perhaps moved from these complex of thinking. You did in 2000, the virtual kingdom of beauty, I think. Is it right now, would you say, is it kind of a virtual kingdom of horror, what we are experiencing? And tell us a bit, what do you think, you know, what can artists do? What should artists do, that what we are asking us here in New York? Artists already have built a different political world and different political reality. And artists have a very clear vision of our societies in the future. They have, especially the so-called activist artists, they have stopped relying on existing infrastructures. And you can see now this is a clear example. Empire is not sustainable. And this is the bridge to our mutual experiences of the Down to Earth exhibition, which has transformed an institution for some period in time. What a pity Thomas Oberender has switched off his video exactly at this moment, because this is exactly the point. The future doesn't bear the empire. The empire is not a sustainable form of governance. And what art can do is what it's already doing. For example, in Kiev, there is the biennial, but biennial is more like a work of art. It is organized as filling the gap of the institutional support of public space, of agonistic space for solving conflicts for discussion, and as the space for really developing some new definition of what is art and also what is politics. So this institution existed as a self-organized initiative. And even now this is what is what is doing today. It's more poignant. The last one was called, the last one was actually called 68 Now. But the one I have participated in with the academia program was called the School of Kiev, which is a reference to the School of Athens. And this was exemplary for creating a society of the future by forging the networks, which we are now relying on. What do you think who are working, who is working on support, the support of the infrastructure in Kiev? Why can Kiev exist? Kiev can exist because of the soldiers who protect the city. And also, you know, cities can exist for quite a long time in the current situation. It is encircled, but it cannot be actually it cannot be fully taken. And so a city can exist for a long time, but it depends. It depends on solidarity. So what has been built during the last 10 years in terms of solidarity between different movements, artistic movements within Europe and beyond. It is actually what now supports the existence of the infrastructure in Kiev. And it is the role of the artists to also run these infrastructures. My dearest friend, Nastya Teot, she has been organizing a lot of initiatives. And one of the most moving and touching ones was that they have been receiving donations and they have been cooking the soup and they have been bringing this soup to the metro station because the workers of the metro station didn't have anything to eat, Frank. Can you imagine this is happening in the 21st century? The workers didn't have anything to eat, but the metro is serving as a shelter nowadays. The streets are not safe. This is what the artists are doing. The artists are documenting Nikita Kadan, for example, is doing the documentaries of the most scary destructive parts of Kiev. And their life has turned into war already at least seven years ago. This war was already going on since a long time. Evgenia Belorussia is writing a diary. Wonderful works. I have actually sent the links to all these different persons and their websites and their paper accounts. And your colleagues have received this list via e-mail and I hope that it will be posted on the documentation. Yes, this is the role of art. So what you say to repeat is what you say. First, art created solidarity. First, artists went out to demonstrate, but then they created networks. Networks, they were not part of institutions, not started by institutions, but actually these networks, these connections are the ones sustaining a city that is under siege and the role of an artist is to do that. And I think it's discussed in your book also, the idea of Heidegger, who came up to the idea of Hüten, shepherding of care. Claire Bishop spoke also about this, that perhaps socially engaged art has been taken over. People of Black Lives Matter didn't need artists anymore, but what artists perhaps have to do now, the most important is to give care, take care, and to shepherd and to create such spaces. What are your friends experiencing? How do you stay in contact? You get Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. How do you know about this reality? We stay in touch purely through the revolutionary telepathic channel. We are synchronized since the revolution of 2011 and 2012, and we don't need all this Zuckerberg empire anymore. So telepathic channel, tell a bit, what do you mean? I'm joking, of course, we are staying in touch with all available electronic means of communication. And I really feel as if I would be spending a lot of time with Nasty right now, Nasty is in Kiev, and she has moved together with others into one apartment so that all different artists can stay together. So they have founded a community within this militarized situation under bombs. They are static communities and she lives and works in the corridor of her apartment. And in the corridor, it is the most safe space because it doesn't have windows. And so from there, she has created wonderful documents, drawings, and also writing. And I have also sent your colleagues the link to this beautiful work. And this is how it is possible to create a completely alternative reality to the war reality. And they have trees inside the apartment and quite big plants, and they are staying calm and they're sure that their soldiers will protect them. It is quite an incredible situation. So much of your project, both of yours, but also your life's work, do they ever understand why to transform institutions, to find new ways of educating and sharing knowledge, to also think about Gaia, the earth, the idea of that we need to take care of, it is now being, it's a rape. The soldiers coming in with tanks, buildings get bombed, the most brutal assault, and it's against everything, I would say, down to earth stand for. I just wanna read a bit of the manifesto. It did say on the book, what connects art and your new ecological politic? What change is just around the corner for our cultural institutions and what change is needed? How will Gaia, that idea of mother earth will be represented on the stages? So it's no longer an anthropogenic representation, just humans having conflicts between each other. How can you do art without using up resources? What can we learn from indigenous cultures? And what does animism mean? They kind of the idea of indigenous thinking, which now is becoming so much more, also in a way mainstream, the consciousness of animals, of plants, remedy protocol that just in our film festival, that's going on now, there's an octopus who's on stage and they're trying to connect the dance of the octopus, that the octopus connect to an audience and they say he or she does. So in the Anthropocene, is it coming to an end, all these questions, but right now there is a World War II, a World War I, an assault with tanks and bombs. How do you put all of this together? Do you both think this is just a vision or what will prevail? How can you stand up against this? You know, I am very happy to have been born in the Autonomous, back then Autonomous Republic, Soviet Socialist Republic of Marielle. We have succeeded all this environmental destruction throughout the past 2000 years. So for us, Putin is just another reincarnation of what Western thinkers were carefully comparing with some Stalinist methods and nowadays they start understanding that this actually wasn't a metaphor. But back to the point, yes, to be born in this huge empire as the smallest indigenous minority, it's quite a mission, something that happens to you quite automatically because within an ancestral theater tradition you of course inherit a certain agency. And nowadays this agency sharpens and clarifies more and more because what is indigenous Europe and in relation to of course resources and so there is a big elephant in the room and decolonization of Russia or I call it regionalization or regionalization, regionalization of Russia is not only my political vision but simply an inevitable reality, inevitable reality. This is why this empire has to hold us all so artificially in chains. But Ukraine can be seen as first and large scale attempt of the inner decolonization of what has been left from this certain economic zone of the former Soviet Union. Those economic ties have never stopped, you know the situation. So now it is the last struggle, it is the last fight and I am in the privileged position to say that this movement of the indigenous Europe will cut this empire like a piece of cake into a diversity and multiplicity of different cultures which live in equilibrium with their environment and which protect natural resources and accept them as persons. And for us it's nothing new but in Bolivia, in Ecuador, in New Zealand and in Australia natural environments, natural living spaces have been already step-by-step accepted as persons and been protected as human rights are protected. Of course there is a counter-dynamics of Bolsonaro and shifting of those laws of protection of indigenous communities but... Yeah, no, it is a big assault and perhaps as you say for centuries it has been going on. You both also were connected to your project as in the Academia Platonous Garden where you know a shopping mall that was basically planned right next to the garden. You know everything there. The gardens are played well. Thomas also once said to me the talking which was deeply moving and the resistance that came also from East Berlin the ones people who went on the streets who were the revolution and who have been overlooked and all of a sudden you know were pushed aside once the capitalism came in. Thomas, what do you see? We have that war. We have the shopping malls arriving that what you called for was your calling your army of friends and artists for that down to earth. Do you think we experienced in the last the ends of the empires or are we entering another dark age? It's an open question. I think both options are open and given. I would love to be so optimistic like Julia is and there are good reasons for empowering all these forces and movements that liberate societies and individuals. In the same time, I think it might be interesting if I have a look on situation in Ukraine my impression is that there is clearly birth of a nation situation right now there. It's clearly the orientation of this nation to the West much more than before. In the same time they feel that economic interests are so strong they can't rely on the brotherhood of the West. And this is very interesting. I think it's painful many people die but in a very good way they are in the middle in a very open field. When they become a part of the NATO to get the same goods and the same structures like the West they started to liberate their own expectations on future from the West and from the East. I think that's the thrilling moment of this whole development. Will there be something new? Because always in this situation the new comes around the corner from a very unexpected direction and I think what's going on in Ukraine is on one hand we see very old power games but we see in the same time birth of a nation as a nation of culture as a nation of language as a nation of tradition, memory solidarity and I don't feel so comfortable with this national thing but in the same time I feel that in this circumstances as a path of liberation for the people in the Ukraine hopefully and they are forced now after hopefully this terrible war will end to develop also a very open view on their own history so what's going on in Mayupol with this as of brigade with this kind of right wing nationalists who are strong forces they are helpful now on the side of the or as a part of the Ukrainian army but don't be too naive about this so there is a lot of things beside the Russian aggression the separatist movements and so on that splits the Ukraine in their own center and this will come back this will be raising the main questions of what kind of country do we want to be or to become and I think Zelensky is a very interesting political figure I wished to quote Yulia Krishanovsky that the Russians will have such liberal person as a president in future that is able to navigate through such transformative processes but in the same time I think we should hesitate to adopt Ukraine in a too easy way as Yulia said they are ahead of us with their experiences so we see now that our minister for economy is now traveling to Kuwait and to get the resources for the economy we don't speak so much about this big change in ecological field we speak now about preventing war that is being armed again in a completely new way spending a lot of money for that and I think the Ukrainian questions are much more closer to future not because they are survival questions they are raising topics with fundamental truth you can't rely on the western concept you can't rely on the eastern concept it's a time and it's a time to find new ways for independence and maybe nobody knows to which end it leads but maybe there are also different concepts not only in art but also in economy and how they treat their country their agriculture maybe also this is changing right now Yulia it will take quite a while to recover the earth in Ukraine I was talking to the farmers the big scale farmers who work with machines and they are very sad they are very sad because no one on the one hand one hopes for Ukraine that Ukraine is the metaphor of freedom that is a model of a new society that is free from the colonial aggressions from any existing side but Monsanto has already destroyed I don't know the percentage I'm sorry but the land is not what it was it is not Korma Ruslan it's not anymore the corn chamber and you mean the chemical company that is multi national billion conglomerate that has introduced yes it is in a way already colonized and it is not it is still not so it is colonized and it is not so on the one hand and you know I talk about it while not having to experience bombings and not having to listen to the sirens but my brother was killed in Ukraine still Ukraine is not the vessel of the US but Ukraine needs military support and it receives a lot of military support and one of my friends wrote to me today that she would like to punch all of Schultz into his face and I just share this desperation well Schultz is the new German chancellor thank you very much for this kind clarification Frank and it is such a farce you know exporting so many weapons there on the one hand and still having clean hands by not really supporting Germany is not interested in Ukraine meaning this war Ukraine needs more support eventually more military support what is more ethical nowadays the opportunism what do you think about I mean I was Judith Molina often came to our Seagal events one of those things when she still was in the old age home she would come to us and we were friends she always believed in the beautiful pacifist anarchist revolution how do you make sense with your call to arms and say I would go on a soldier too I would go and shoot people you know I'm not a military expert I'm not calling directly to shooting people but you said you would join get a call I might do it oh no no no I would not kill wait wait a second I would play I would play the lyra to the wounded soldiers okay yeah yeah so they would hear something like this because the oldest fragment from an ancient Greek tragedy so it is about Mariupol theater mm-hmm you as one of your art project you reconstructed an ancient Greek lyra and you sang Delphic hymns apollonian hymns to the god Apollo and which was written down the second century before our time and it was actually at the time against the barbaric romans and so you know so tell us a little bit about about that project of singing in dark times about the dark times or what are you singing about it's about the a strong wave a tragic force that is coming and you cannot do anything about it so it is mm-hmm it's a healing melody and healing words they are calling for process mm-hmm the process of accepting mm-hmm a biotic times the process of entering the time and space beyond time and space the process of understanding as Haena Mula said there is no the death is the thought is that how can you correct it into English correctly the death is the death is an arrow ancient Greek ancient Greek with Haena Mula for Mariupol theater the the the the the before the the not close the sky with an ancient Greek lyra but we have to concentrate on it people will never be able to recover from their guilt of having watched destruction of Mariupol and other cities. If they are honest with themselves, more has to be done. More has to be done and also America should do more. The American artistic community should do but I'm thinking about what you said and also I think what that Daunterers did for you know to create structures to create networks to build something you can rely on later and I think this perhaps is something we have not been taking care of enough and it will not come from institutions also perhaps not the aim and goal of institutions but it is about survival in that sense and we in America knew also with their whole Trump movement and we don't know how elections will go so this is something to learn from I think from that and what we should be doing because we all are asking ourselves what can we do so far away. Thomas what from your experience and you have seen so much, you have produced and created so much, you have written so much, what do you feel needs to be done now, what should artists engage in also theater artists? It's hard to give any kind of advice I would like to say what I'm doing I starting to learn to find a real relation to the Ukraine conflict so there are many ways to find a relation that is more than watching TV it's meeting people organizing something with people that is a sign in the public. I started to read books by Ukrainian authors I really recommend Natasha Vodin she's born in Germany but she's a writer from parents who the father is a Russian and the mother is an Ukrainian woman both in the World War II brought slaves for work to Germany and it's very very very touching and intelligent way of rewriting the German Ukrainian bilateral history you learn a lot about the Soviet Union the Soviet human this kind of strange character that is formed by the Stalinist system and I think as Julia said and my friend Ilya says work is now to do to give to witness to give document make documentations creating archives archives of all the cruel actions we we see but also archives of works of beauty and moments who are really important to bring to the future from this situation right now gestures that are treasures of let's say real human behavior and I think we all want to do more than we can and I'm really shocked by let's say you one of your guests was Anna Vogelgesand for example he made a theater production about the third world war in the internet regarding fake news attacks a constant war of disinformation and it's a kind of war without a battle to quote Heina Müller's famous title from his autobiography and suddenly we have the battle and we have to define what is the war about and I think artists are good advisors to find deeper structures they are closer to let's say models of experience and narrations that are older than our everyday understanding and so I tried to start to learn from artists and I discover how much prophecies they got they gave already and to take it serious to to find places for them that would be nice to do right now yeah historically artists have been on the right side of history on the right side of justice progressive justice but and one only wishes people would have listened to them Julia what is so stunning with your work as an artist coming out of that small minority that perhaps has little answers has answers for us that would now be so much more relevant for for for the big corpus of of nations for planet earth on one hand you recreated a thousand-year-old what creek liary we were just singing that 2000 year-old song where one thing so little has changed you know against the barbaric romans on the other hand you created also 3d virtual works I've seen some of the videos you create imaginary societies imaginary republics lessons for forbidden knowledge do you how do you bridge these hybrid forms of their handmade instruments and the digital technology do you feel um one now has to be has to be a master of all these artistic expressions is it a hybrid forms that we need to engage with or are you just trying out different ways of artistic oppression um you know friend before I even talk about uh myself or my tribe I would like to recommend people some uh Ukrainian work of art works of art may I may I post them in the chat may I sure um I'm not sure if they can accept the audience cannot access the chat but put it in and we will put it onto our websites yeah exactly it's for later in that case and apart from that also you know I've uh recently to continue what Thomas was saying um trying to finally uh get more engaged when I was always engaged with the contemporary art scene in Ukraine and then you lose each other because you have your own world in Athens and then you realize this is happening no I was so exhausted trying to um invite people in and enthusiastically drag them towards Kiev but it was so difficult I brought a lot of um a lot of I brought um a small and humble program of autonomy academia to Kiev to the so-called UFO uh Nasty Tior whom I've mentioned at the beginning uh she has been protecting with others the buildings of modernism the buildings of Kiev modernism I don't want to think what happens with them now you know one building looks like a UFO it really has this form that is sitting on a building to build this back then and it was a synesthetic theater so you could um individually the videos and the sound were directed to you you would have headphones in the chairs and you would fly to cosmos in those chairs and just imagine you know this might be destroyed this is you know people are staying in Kiev and um they they are protecting this city because of this because it's such a unique city and people are not really involved and they're not aware how beautiful and interesting it is also there are theater directors and authors um for example there is Natalya Voroshbit she is one of few very brave authors yeah she was she was often at the Segal center as a guest and also great great great great I feel less ridiculous right now because she was already at least there you know I'm just wondering what am I doing here no they they are now and the both they should be talking and I would like to also encourage you to play down the video link that I've provided here and I've also sent to the team the link that I've asked to play back um the video of last day about the uh her appeal to the international community um it is more about them you know and having said this I would like to also say something one would probably not hear unless I tell you about it in our theater in the city of Yosha Ola there is still our Mari theater I was talking so enthusiastically about this automatic falling apart of the entire Russia in different different cultures but of course now the memorial society is closed and the only perspective people have in their mind is a dead end and dark times and people are writing letters to me saying goodbye and that they're very grateful to have met me in their lives and see you next life so to speak so these dark times which have arrived there also do arrive in our indigenous theater the director of our theater is a spy and my best friend Stepan Viktorov is already facing difficulties certain plays are already not being played and I have sent several links also to one of his works about the first acoustic film in Russia Putyovka's rhythm I don't even know how to translate it but first acoustic film has um it becomes so famous because our um very important Mari actor Ivan Krlan the first indigenous actor was playing in this film very characteristic appearance and he has done a play Stepan Pektaev he has done a play about this film and this film is interestingly it is made on the verge between communism and Stalin epoch and this is precisely the time of the term the time we are entering now the Stalinist methods are becoming true reality and not just metaphors and there are political repressions and yes at the same time as you just asked me actually it's a very long answer but yes the vision the vision of is um related and daggers communities is shared vision so Stepan's other play is called folks and uh participants of this play were talking in different languages different European languages including Mari language and on stage it looked very pagan you can see it also it is among the links and this is a very bright and very beautiful vision of our society and um yeah so the Republic of Marielle is at the end of Europe it is part of European continent and talking about ancient Greece for us historically speaking we can only offer a counter narrative to Putin's historical motivations beyond his rapist invasion is that Ukraine is of course the most eastern province of Greece of Greece and there are also very strong relations to Greek culture in the Ukrainian city of Hersonatos and there are villages that carry Greek names even now and there are the hypotheses of a German theater director Symbacist John Kaiser that Ifigenia was sent to Tauros which is actually on the island of Krim so Krim doesn't belong to Russia it belongs to Greece. Yeah some say that actually the resistance the Ukrainian nation is putting up you know is connected to a democratic structure over a century of slightly more democratic than the the the czaristic vision of of a sort of a union of Soviet states and and there is a so it is actually a battle between ideologies and the question is what do we become as artists are we soldiers do we also have to work harder do we have to work stronger I think for me it's a call you know to be as vigilant in my work as the people who are now you know fighting in a sense you know with their guns you know I grace the invasion this illegal invasion against Geneva Convention against the international law it's a lawless event what we are witnessing big question of course is and we had it a little bit on a very small scale in New York after Corona will it be a renaissance or a revolution a renaissance is should we go back to how it was New York will flourish again or will something radically change and I think this is the moment you know where we are in and of course we all hope it is a moment of radical change and that this fight that is happening perhaps you know will end our show in a new awareness we are so far away here in America it's a very big island nothing is changing nothing of our lives we do not encounter like Thomas in the train stations you know in the trains the refugees on the street all of my friends in Berlin have refugees a lot of them in their homes so I think it is important that also America you know understands what it is at stake that this is about a planetary you use that would also a planetary crisis and not just looking what are the interests of a national state like Germany, France or America but I really am inspired by you that you do say artists have a place in this fight right that's what you are saying to us. Yes I think that not only artists artists is also a very narrow identity nowadays nowadays is just about here and now you are Frank you are Thomas I'm Julia and let's think what can we do to just tonight to really support the self-organized infrastructures in Kiev what are the concrete possibilities to involve people invite them to give talks to give lectures to show screenings to show their videos to really listen to what they were saying and what they would like to also to work on together with us rather I see institutions from Europe that patronize over Ukrainian artists and feel very good when they exhibit their sculptures and discuss some concrete structures and metal structures you know people are dying right now so what can you prank Thomas and me what can we do now you know because existing structures you know I've been sending emails to my friends in existing German institutions and they said that they could not show the videos by my friends from Ukraine because they have so many exhibitions planned due to corona that they could not put it in their program right now this is this was a call for solidarity and it is very telling it was actually rather invitation to to show a video somewhere in the entrance maybe a call for solidarity what is this and you don't need to be an institutional director or non institutional director or artist or or a theater worker you don't need to be you don't need this all there is a drill speaking for you and you have to act now that's all and I don't even know why I have to be invited to such a conversation because this is so obvious everybody can say it now and this is the time that has arrived now it's a huge planetary crisis and it's a war over resources and there are no dictators bad and good guys it's all of us we are all putting it's all of our fault we all can do something and we cannot wait for anything so you can see here in this chat room paper account this is what you can do right now against necropolitics of the tsar and maybe we can organize I can speak with howl around that we organize the screening you know of of works if we get some help with links and what to do so that it is Ukraine is on people's mind and it is of importance Thomas coming also closer to the end of our talk what what else is on your mind when you think about this planet this world instead of the big hope in a way that a down to earth festival you know will teach us a more gentle way of dealing with our environment with the tile name in the landscape your landscape which we participate in and respect instead of destroying it or what comes to your mind in this in this moment for this planetary thinking you are involved in I think we don't have to be naive if we speak if we did a project like down to earth basically the starting point was the idea to make a camp to bring communities together who never are in the same frame in institutional events usually and to to open these borders to open the understanding of let's say the work that institutions has to do we have to change this because the work is not it's not only the operation system the retrieve system it's also the goal of our work the goal of our work I think should be more related to understanding what is good life and good life in in in this older sense of what takes what what is good for us as as an experience and relation to the world and other people so this is the main question and I understand the urgent call from Julia because now maybe the the much more the biggest pressure is to help people to survive to defend themselves in the same time I think we have to to let all these feelings of guilt behind us to become really empathic and to to open to open our routine for inventions of inventions of that are interventions in the way how we produce how we build networks for me in the moment I'm searching for spaces I'm searching for let's say I would love to build an alternative society on a very small venue in which we can have for a certain amount of days for a very short time an example for good life for good relation to environment to other people and to give an example that it's possible and so it's more than consuming I think if you ask me going out of this old tradition of consuming something and I I I'm not a fan of of co-producing I don't want to go in a theater to be a part of something but I think that there are ways to organize a more holistic experience of what art means and that is let's say in the center is the artwork but the artwork could be also a central like the Maidan the Maidan was an open space and it's square that was in the same time a front line and brought so many people together workers artists people from the army neighbors but I think this would be a very good work to start to build up this kind of squares in our rich society to bring to bring this kind of energies together and to to check what is really good for us and I love of course all the artists who make great performances and writing good books that's not old fashioned but I think the way how we write books and how we do performances is changing and also the way how we running our institutions is changing and we should not go back because there's inflation inflation there is a lack of money arising right now and there will be a change but not from the idealistic point of view and we have to take that as a chance I think this this comes to us if you want it or not Julia some some more thoughts yes in Greece it has already come some time ago and around 2012 there were 33 alternative currencies used in this country this country is an enlightened enlightened society this country always also had Nazis what did they do they have protected themselves from those Nazis by establishing cities out we don't want to get into that discussion but it's just an example of certain things that eventually can happen and they do happen there and there are worlds there beyond the existing so-called democratic governmental structures that are those worlds those words that are very close to what Thomas has just described as good life and in Greece we experiment on different notions of good life with their forms of knowledge and the practices that are related to forms of knowledge of living are indeed intersectional so it is theater with theoretical techniques with political theory and with performing arts yes so I do experience what Thomas just said and we also do experience this in the Marielle forest it's called humo gaivi which means living like the gods our highest goddess is called mother of the sun it's very different to the patriarchy white heterosexual man who is now in his last agonic state yeah that's uh that is uh both of you what you say it is so significant and it's so important and I think hopefully we will write this down I have a transcription I mean it is really um especially also for us here in New York so far removed we have most of the energy now goes can we get restarted again can Brooklyn Academy of Music start again and here art center and St. Anne's and we are busy people Broadway wants to bring Michael Jackson video back but you know there is a new planetary situation and next to bringing all this back we have to develop new artistic practices that are connected to our lives and we have to live it and it's something that is not I think understood enough and we need to create this for the future because as we see with Ukraine we do not know what is coming in New York people are organizing assemblies about Ukraine also yeah so this this is also hope that we can eventually rely on already on our thin and fine net that has been created during the occupied time that is true and I hope there will be much more I hope maybe at the very end you can sing us your song again if that's okay for you and uh I have to say you know the the the this this beautiful Apollonian song of ancient Greece from two centuries before our time and against the barbaric intrusions can't will you do that for us against the and yeah and then I would like you know to say thank you for both of you for joining Thomas for coming in I apologize again for the summertime mix up we put you a bit under stress are we and the five o'clock and six o'clock but I think this was a very significant and very important discussion we need to hear from Ukraine but also from Germany Belarus we're going to have the freedom seat of Belarus with us Natalia Kalyada who also sees her work as a diplomatic mission in life he's just just in Washington speaking to lawmakers you know to hear from her what she thinks that what this conflict is about and I want to thank Halround for hosting us also encouraging us you know to start these talks again so it's very very important and we also now feel it is a time that we put into practice also our center we will start again our university is still closed there are no public programs possible but I will go back in the office this week and we will see how we can react also to that great down to earth program with things in the park to create networks and maybe one day Julia you can also come and create work and art here and share what you have to say and what is really really important from that small indigenous community with that had perhaps answers over thousands of years and it's a faint voice and we didn't listen to it in the world would be a better place if everyone would so thank you thanks for Halround for having us Tanvi and Andy for creating this and again if that's a thinkable Julia it was such a beautiful also ancient mythical song for the people in Maripole people who might be get killed at the moment we speak here some artists who also as we heard from a talk we did a talk on Friday theater companies actors are leaving rehearsals to join the army thank you Frank for you will be back thank you Thomas thank you Frank you do really a very important wonderful work well it means means a lot if you say that because I know you mean it thank you Thomas indeed dear Frank thank you for having become the ally of the Mari tribe in the US okay and I would like to call all my ancestors and all my ancestors and also I would like to honor those who were shot on the Maidan square I somehow spontaneously started talking about them at the very beginning and we won't maybe we are creating a new journal also an academic journal is going to be called indigenous stages it will be the first one worldwide dedicated to indigenous art about artists artists work but also three theoretical reflections about it it does not exist yet opal I needed Ryan Pierce one of our students and I we are creating it so we hope that we can have you represented in there something exciting happened today there was a document I've seen it very briefly it was posted by an initiative of trans localities of feminist movement and it is also including different claims of independence within indigenous communities of Russia so so I will be very very happy to collect some material then contribute and now again again let's mourn let's mourn the victims once again and listen to this healing sound of the ancient Greek play a different excerpt from a different hymn it's more evolutionary so thank you thank you thank you all very very much and I hope to welcome both of you sooner one day here in New York or to see you in in Berlin earthen thank you thank you Julia thank you Thomas thank you everybody for listening in yeah thanks to the listeners who take time out of their lives to join us and also put into action what we heard about please revisit this youtube documentation for all the links to this wonderful persons initiatives and to their works okay we will post it on the website and also on the howl wrong side I hope that's possible thank you bye bye thank you thank you Julia