 Welcome to the Ukraine Lab launch posted by the British Library. I'm B. Rolat of the cultural events team, and in the library we're really excited about tonight's event. It's a really special one for us, both in its ambition and its content. Our writers tonight will be exploring the global challenges of war, disinformation and climate change through the prism of Ukraine and the art of storytelling. And I want to thank you, the audience, joining us tonight for not tuning out of events in Ukraine, for not looking away. We don't need to get overwhelmed. We can all learn from Ukrainian resistance. That's why we're here tonight. So please send your questions in anytime using the box below here on the platform and Sasha will put those questions to our speakers. And this brings me to the inimitable Sasha Doctor Sasha Dovchik is your guide for the evening. She is a special project curator at the Ukrainian Institute London. She's an associate lecturer in Ukrainian at UCL. She does a huge amount of work with journalists reporting the war alongside her own dispatches, which you can read on her website. And I really recommend you take a look. I love her tracing of the work of the feminist icon Lesya Ukrainka, a poet whose work embodies the idea of willpower transcending physical suffering. In Sasha's words, to understand Ukraine's resistance to Russia, you must look to the pages of the nation's poetry books. So tonight we're looking into the pages of Ukraine and the UK's future writers. Over to you, Sasha. Thank you to the British Library, our absolutely fantastic hosts and partners for this event and not only. I'm delighted to speak to you from London about the project that builds bridges between the UK and Ukraine, while also opening Ukrainian culture to the world. Ukraine Lab is this sort of laboratory. It's a writing residency in the first place that we, the Ukrainian Institute London developed in partnership with Ben Ukraine and Ukrainian Institute in Kiev as part of the UK Ukraine season of culture, which is supported by the British Council. This very special writing residency united three emerging authors from Ukraine and three emerges or emerging authors from the UK, and they worked collaboratively for six weeks over the summer on their creative nonfiction pieces. Now creative nonfiction means that their essays are rooted in documents are rooted in facts and in lived experiences, and yet they possess this creative approach to storytelling, which for me makes them magical. Why Ukraine Lab, that's sort of the mystery of the name. The thing is that Ukraine has often been called a laboratory when it comes to global challenges, be it ecological emergencies like the Chernobyl nuclear disaster or Kremlin lab disinformation campaigns or the impacts of modern war. And Ukrainians, as we all have learned by now have responded to all these challenges with creativity with resilience, and their responses have turned Ukraine into this treasure trove of cultural resistance strategies. We believe that it is high time now for all of us for the world to learn the lessons of Ukrainian resistance. And to do that, we will emerge, immerse ourselves in the art of storytelling. The six writers that have been selected to participate in this online writing residency were asked to reflect on the global challenges related to security to environment to information in their essays. For six weeks over the summer, they learned about Ukrainian experiences from a global perspective from their very respected mentors about whom I'll tell you a few words a bit later. The writers were also lucky to learn the craft of writing from the incredible authors and lecturers. Julia Bell from Bergbeck and David Saddle from the University of Salford, as well as the Ukrainian poet Irina Chevalova. Another thing that for me makes Ukraine lab so special is the visual components. The pieces by the six participants were visually interpreted by an absolutely astonishing and talented Ukrainian photographer Spyslav Chernov. Spyslav has been on the front lines of this war, which of course has not started this February, but eight years ago in February 2014 for all this time he was documenting Ukrainian resistance and despite and some of his images from Marjupol have won him dozens of awards already. He developed very special artworks in response to the pieces by the six Ukraine lab authors and he'll be able to see some of his works tonight. But what makes Ukraine lab such a success? And I'm obviously not at all partial here. I think it's an amazing success. It's the cohorts of writers we've attracted. A pretty unique thing is that all the UK based authors have traveled to Ukraine independently and they are all incredibly committed to the cause. Ukrainian authors are a mixture of unique voices from the West, the East and the capital of the country and they are truly inspirational and I can vaguely recall about all of them for the next hour or so, but it's probably wise for us to listen to the authors themselves. Just a technical issue, as you may know, there is a problem with electricity in Ukraine and if there is a blackout and we'll lose connection with some of our authors will try to reconnect them as soon as we can. So please bear with us. And of course, if there is an air raid alerts, this is also part of the reality of life in Ukraine these days. So please bear with us and I hope this evening will continue without any interruptions. So first of all, we will watch the reading of two pieces that focus on war. The mentor for this thematic blog was Olesa Khrometchuk, a writer, scholar, theater maker and accidentally the director of the Ukrainian Institute London. Olesa shared with the participants her thoughts on staging a play and writing a book about the experiences of trauma, loss, grief caused by Russia's war against Ukraine. The first writer you'll hear from is Sofia Chalak, a translator to the presenter and program director of the Lviv International Book Forum. Her piece, Ukrainian Lottery, describes the first days of the full scale invasion in the westernmost Ukrainian city of Lviv. And the second reading will be by Chris Mikhailovich, an international volunteer and writer focusing on Eastern Europe. His essay, Lohansk Stolen, moves between the Eastern Ukrainian city of Lohansk and Harkiv, the second largest Ukrainian city that has been shelled mercilessly by the Russians since February. These pieces have already been published in MIR Online and in English and in Ukrainian in Pyshden. So please, when you have a moment, just Google them and have a read, they are worth it. The bilingual translations are by our brilliant translator, Nina Murray. So let's enjoy the first pair of readings. If you are going to spread pessimism, I'll kick you out of the apartment. But let me show this video of how our nice biographers blow up Russian tanks. Look, there was a column of tanks. Can you see them? And now there is not! I look up with tears in my eyes. But what if he lives here? What if he never got married and Harkiv back? The waves of adrenaline that made us capable of walking two or three jobs and volunteering between would give way to deep beats of despair. Whenever that happened, the most important job was to support the person, to pull them out as quickly as possible. And then to keep walking, walking, walking, living on our opportunity for another four. Even if they take them, we'll get them back. Look, look, look, a nice little biochar is flying through the sky and there are fields below. Pretty summer fields. Boom! Feel better? If not, I'll give you my wine. There is six sips are not going to make a difference. Thank you. It's a little better. I can't take your wine. We watched a lot of Russian content to understand what people were concerned about. It was a thing, but we could not stop. All of us least read Russians and these gave us the tool too. Let's be friend about it. Locate some hope that their society would recognize, would protest, that they would begin fighting the regime from inside while we battle in the frontline. Our hopes were in vain. Instead we saw Instagram stories about the pain of sanctions. Are you serious? And three story presidents. To think of yourself separated from Luchansk was to imagine yourself in a vacuum. But now you felt at last the need to leave, to follow the whisperings of sleep and feel the things you saw and touched in dreams. You stood in line with the pensioners at Stanice Luchansk, feeling like you were about to cross the river Styx to go back into the world of the living. The Russians at the crossing asked if you had a boyfriend and looked at you like you were an item in a warrior's harem. They were so beguiled by you in their boredom, they neglected to search your bags. You wondered if all it took was a smile for you to be able to smuggle bombs for the resistance, and copies of Khazar back across the demarcation line undetected. You followed your friends to Harkiv and enrolled in university, where for four years of total freedom, you jumped at every loud noise and lay awake at night, worried for your parents. Then the Russians decided Harkiv was also their city. So once again, just like the day they shelled your street, Bak and Luchansk at the start of the war. You crouched for the last time in fear of the murderous sky. I should just say that I love the way that these recordings mix the visuals and the literary text, and I can't thank the British Library enough for this. I'm also delighted to see Sofia and Chris on my screen for the first time since the summer, and I've been missing you a lot, guys. My first question, my first two questions are for Sofia. First of all, where are you now? Let us know. And second of all, your title for your essay is Ukrainian Lottery. Could you explain the concept behind the title and behind your essay? Could you tell us a bit more about that? Hi, Sasha. Hi, everybody. I'm so delightful to be here. It's so crazy. We're all having a meeting in British Library. Thank you, a lot of thanks to Ukrainian Lab and all of the partners to make it possible. I am in Lviv now. It's quite safe and also we don't have a lookout. Yes, we are quite privileged. Secondary connect to your question. Why it's a lottery? I've started to walk on this text after I visited Kiev a lot in spring. After I was to Ippin-Bucha and I was talking to a lot of people. Of course, it was a lot of sad stories, but people who can be victims as a rule, they were lucky to have this lucky ticket to stay alive. Then during the Ukraine Lab, I was I have a chance to visit Kharkiv and I've been there for two days. And also it was a lottery in the night when we stayed there. It was like 12 missles falling down the city and it hasn't harmed anyone that night. After we left Kharkiv to come to the Kharkiv region, really close to the front line, we were lucky to leave Kharkiv, not to come to Saltivka as we were planning. Because of that day, front line was moving and Russia artillery started to hit the buildings. So we were the person to have this lucky ticket. Like it was mentioned, I am leading the Festival V-Book Forum and this year we got festival in Viv basically, in partnership with the Hay Festival. But after we have to have an official program with some writers coming to Kiev and having some experience to see the Kiev region, to meet people in Kiev. And we just arrived and 10th of October when the huge bombing has started. But we were also lucky. First of all, we were like safe. Like staying in the bomb shelters, the area we were like it was like pretty safe. But secondly, you know, we finished the festival evening before Viv was in the blackout for the whole day without connection. So like staying here is pretty safe. Like still living our lives with like trying our best to live our lives. My taxes about this. Because of Ukrainians like head to knees, we are trying to live our lives as much as possible. But sometimes you are not lucky. Like till now, me personally, I am lucky to be alive, to have a chance visiting a lot of places and to become an ice and then become a voice of people sharing their stories. Thank you so much, Sofia, for being such a powerful and poignant voice and for being our eyes in the places that we can't reach. I think the first lesson of Ukraine lab is re-evaluating the concept of luck. What you are saying about luck is quite different from what most people in the world outside of Ukraine would think of when they speak about luck. Thank you. And my second question is for Chris. I'm also interested to hear where you are right now. And yeah, let us know. Where are you? I'm in the same place as Sofia. I'm also in the beef right now. What brought you there? Well, initially, this is my ancestral homeland. I'm from the UK. However, my ancestors lived in the Lviv Skioblast in the Lviv region. Very happily or not for many centuries until they were displaced to the UK. So I was first brought here by this ancestral connection. And what has kept me here is basically being in love with Ukrainian literature, Ukrainian culture, Ukrainian food, Ukrainian everything. So this explains why I'm in the same place as Sofia right now. Wonderful. Your piece, Luhansk Stolen, is very emotional. And I'm just wondering, is there something in particular you would like your audience to bear in mind after reading it or to feel or to think? Is there a message that you would like to convey with your piece? I can't say that it's a very cerebral piece. I didn't compose it with a certain message in mind. But to be very broad about it, I would hope anybody who reads it would either keep in mind or would learn that the world has become very aware of Ukraine. Ukraine is very much on the world's mind since the 24th of February of this year. However, this wasn't the beginning of a new war. This 24th of February was the expansion of operations of a war that had been ongoing for eight years. I felt it's important that people be aware of that. This war has been going on for much longer than probably most realized. The other thing too is that my experience of I've volunteered across many post-conflict or current conflict zones in Europe. The tendency when a place becomes besieged is the people living there become a kind of abstraction of war, of suffering. It becomes an integral task way, a kind of form of theater. For example, I wrote about Lchansk, but let's use the example of Moriupol, because people, I think in the national audience since February of this year, are far more aware of Moriupol. This is a place that when people think of it, they think of destruction, they think of all of the horrible atrocities that go on with an occupation. It would likely not occur to many people that this was in fact a place very much like where they're from. I hoped to write about Lchansk, which as I say, it could be a standard for Moriupol, for any occupied territory really. This is a place where people experience very similar things to what the reader does, and the fact that I focused on the protagonists and the lessons. Well, that demonstrates that childhood of the protagonist could have been very much like the one of the reader had it not been for this very rude awakening of innocence that comes in the form of Russian aggression and invasion. So to keep it brief, I would say that's probably the two important points I would like readers to take away, is that number one, this war has lasted a lot longer than most people realize. Number two, Lchansk or any other occupied part of Ukraine has a lot more in common with the readers, whoever the reader may be, the readers hometown than they realize. The European does a great work of bringing those places in the pre-war life closer to us in the English language. Thank you so much, and we will discuss all the pieces later in the general Q&A, but now I would like to move to our second thematic block, which is environment. Ukraine is suddenly known as the site of the world's worst nuclear catastrophe and is now of course the first country in the world where Russia has weaponized objects of civilian nuclear infrastructure. Moreover, we hear more and more calls to frame Russia's actions in Ukraine as ecocide, so the environmental focus on Ukraine could not be more pertinent today, and I'm very glad that Ukraine Lab covers this topic. The two writers who explored the environmental subjects through the lens of Ukraine were mentored by Tamara Hunderova. Tamara Hunderova is the world's leading environmental humanities scholar who has also explored the trauma of Chernobyl and how it played out in Ukrainian culture. I highly recommend her book, The Post-Chernobyl Library. And the two pieces have already been published in The Ecologist, which is one of the most high-profile environmental platforms in the English language, and in Ukraine Ska Pravda, which is a popular Ukrainian outlet. The first Ukrainian lab writer you'll hear from today is Katerina Yakovlenko. She is a Luhansk-born visual culture researcher and writer and also since recently a research fellow at the School of Slovak and Eastern European Studies here in London at UCL. Katerina's piece is a poetic reflection on the social environmental context of Eastern Ukraine and on the three elements that have shaped these contexts, salt, coal and gas. The piece is called, again, very poetically, black, white and colorless. The second reading will be by Jonathan Turnbull, a cultural and environmental geographer researching the return of nature to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Jonathan's piece, Key of Thickets, drifts through the wild and weird green spaces of the capital of Ukraine, the spaces you do not usually hear about called thickets. And in Johnny's words, these places are priming with political potential. Let's hear the readings now. The air is so heavy in the summer, you can hardly move your feet. Your body becomes heavy and it feels like your noisters are made of brick. You gasp for breath like fish breath in by the powerful ocean wave. It is hard to tell if there is because of the bright step sun or the dust that warms its way into your clothes and skin. I cannot for whom how the miners who must wear their protective overalls every day and climb down into the gusts of the blazing hot earth, serving in temperatures like this. I never asked my father about this. He used to work as a power engineer at mine. In winter, it's little easier, but the winds can be so strong, they send the very ground under your feet skittin in every direction. The local road crows would put salt in the ice and bath roads. This is not always prevent injuries, but made it necessary to clean the white rows of salt of your black fake leather shoes every night. The time was the late 19th and the beginning of new millennium. The bright colors of childhood were painted in the shadows of the grey every day. Endless high-rise buildings, modernist spaceship-like constructions and gargantuan-soviet-era monuments of communists and workers. Before I arrived to Kiev as a naive PhD student, I pictured grey concrete and lots of it. And while my impressions formed from afar were not entirely false, they were lacking to say the least. It irks me that this greyness is the first and often only thing people think of when they imagine Kiev, a city whose symbol is a horse-chestnut leaf begging us to find the green among the grey. June 2021, a year ago, a different world. We're gliding down the Danipro on a riverboat at a fashion show by Mikhail Koptev, Ukraine's premier trash designer who left Luhansk for Kiev after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. Portside, we look up a hill past an all but fully-newed catwalker into the greenery of Fritschkoe National Botanical Garden. Glancing starboard past a leaf cellatub to the groin of another stumbling model, we see Hedropark, one of several forested islands on the Danipro which splits Kiev's right and left banks. My friends, Grant and Hugo, who visit regularly from Berlin, are surprised by Kiev's green lushness. An aspect of the city, which seems to get lost in translation. Kiev has been known as a green city in the reference books in Soviet times, but for many foreigners, this comes as news. One afternoon, my friend Dmitriy Tripurni and I were out for a wander. Dima, a researcher and curator from Luhansk whose family home has been occupied since 2014, has lived in Kiev for 11 years and is well acquainted with the city's nukes and crannies. So what are they, these Kiev thickets, I asked, have I never heard this term before? They're these green zones around the city, he replied, and are filled with political potential. The Kiev thickets are, as the name suggests, dense patches of thick greenery that occupy the margins of the city, akin to the bracken of Berlin. Often liminal spaces suspended between rural and urban nature and society, they are a gathering place for marginalised human communities and practices, as much as they are for endangered non-human species. Weekend derives with Dima and his crew of artists, photographers and researchers allowed me to become intimately acquainted with several of the Kiev thickets, spending time with the modern human communities that call them home. Discussing environmental questions of Ukraine and environmental lessons of Ukraine. Thank you, Sasha, and I'm also very happy to see all of the participants and you and also be present in the British Library. It's a big honour to me to be here today. And for me, it was very challenging to participate in this lab in an environmental topic, because I never was related to this. But then I understand that I was, because I researched Donbass, I researched Donbass for six years from the cultural field and I looked deeply to the connection between culture and violence. But then I recognised that all the topics that we are raising, like gas, oil and salt, from the economic perspective. And even now talking about this as a local economical problem, but of course with a connection with a European economical problem. But this is also deeply rooted in the environmental crisis and because of war has no border. I mean, of course, in international media, it's present still as a local issue and as Ukrainian problem, but we all know that it's not a Ukrainian problem. So the environmental issue is quite changing the perspective and it gives understanding of war and the war everyday life and the results of war globally. And especially when we understand how it's connected with plants, with animals, and then we see how many plants and animals are in danger right now. How many cities are destroyed and that it's also connected with the pollution and how difficult situation. For example, in Mariupol with health and like lots of other stuff. So it gives understanding that Ukrainian war, it's a global issue, right? And we have to solve it and it's traditionally seen that we just have to stop being in war, but it's not working in this issue. So we have to think how to really stop it, but not with some peaceful dialogues or demonstration, but with some real actions that we have to do an international law in some other fields as well. But also I want to remind that as we know that Ukrainian war, the Russian war in Ukraine have been started in spring 2014, but in summer I was writing a piece and I was remembering all the time the difficult connections between Ukraine and Russia. And I remember myself that it was an accident in 2003 with Taman Peninsula and Russian forces want to like build sort of to, they call it, they care, they was caring about the coastline of the Taman Peninsula but basically they want to to stall Ukrainian island called Zmini. So it was a huge international precedent. The problem was solved until the end of the year and then we know that the Orange Revolution have been started, but basically the case wasn't been solved, haven't been solved. So it still was a huge problem for this demarcation line and this is also for me a big question how we recognize our territory in a global perspective that for one hand we are of course seeing this as something which is clearly could be marked in the map, but still we have some parts on our border which is not very clearly marked as it was in this part of the territory on the Azov and Black Sea. So it's lots of big questions and issue and I was really happy to make this journey through Dumbass history and through the cases of the coal, gas and salt. Thank you Katja and yeah we can't emphasize enough that this is not the first year when the war has been raging and the global efforts to stop it have been insufficient so far and this is actually our last wake up call. Johnny, do you have something to add on the environmental lessons for the rest of the world that can be learned from Ukraine today? Yeah thanks Sasha for everything that you've done for all of us and yeah it's good to see everybody again on screen for the first time in a while. I was thinking about this question and I think what's become clear is that the environment is intensely geopolitical and it's just kind of come right to the fore of everyone's attention. I think Ukraine's always been known as Europe's breadbasket, this place of intense concentration of natural resources whether it be wheat or whether it be as Katja is writing about in the Dumbass region coal, gas, salt. And I think just more like during this war we've seen these natural resources become weaponized, we've seen ecocide, we've seen attacks on infrastructure, water, energy, all of these things have become weapons of geopolitics, the grain deal in the south of Ukraine. I don't know how all of these natural resources are interconnected around the world, but I also think like kind of in the future as well what we've seen is this reliance on Russian gas in Western Europe, another natural resource that is intensely political. There are attempts, although they're measly in comparison to what they should be to shift away from this. We have seen instances of energy mixes being changed. And I wouldn't say I wouldn't necessarily say it gives hope but it shows that this system of fossil fuel dependence is malleable and needs to be going forward. So I think those are the kind of like major geopolitical things that we can learn from Ukraine and there's some excellent Ukrainian writers like Alexei Odinsky has written about the dependence on gas in Germany. But then on like a more everyday level, like I write about it in my piece where these local natural environments whether it be woodlands or forests or something like this have become uncanny in following the Russian invasion has been heavily mined and things like this. And so people's relationship with the land has been changed much like it was after the Chernobyl disaster. And so yeah, I think learning lessons from how people are coping in these uncanny environments is something that's an ongoing process and will have to do going forward. Thank you. I love a bit of hope coming from Johnny and all the writers in this cohort are probably used to me being an absolute killjoy and then to them just talking sense into me. This is one of the brilliant outcomes of Ukraine lab just my improved mental health, I guess. But now it's time for us to move to the third topic of Ukraine lab, which is this information and Ukrainian perspective some disinformation. In recent years, the international community has been shaken by Russia's use of information as a weapon. And from the US presidential election back in 2016, I think, to the pandemic responses in 2020. The very bombardment of the public with messages that sabotage the very concept of truth has been taking place. However, it is actually in Ukraine into 2014 that the Kremlin has tried out this tactic of hub hybrid warfare for the first time. Our writers have been mentored in this area by someone who needs no introduction, Peter Pomerantsev. He is the author of Nothing is True and Everything is Possible and this is not propaganda. The two very essential books on disinformation and our life in cyberspace these days. The meeting will be by the page. She is a master students, a student in political sociology and since recently communications officer the Ukrainian Institute London. This piece is incredibly clever. It's called on which side and it calls on the Western audiences to discern Ukrainian voices and it's the noise of Russian propaganda. And the second essay is by brilliant Ukraine based key based author Olena Kosar, who is a journalist editor and copywriter her pieces called How Do You Know? And it is a very poignant reflection on the effects of information overflow, which was a surprising topic for me and Olena has surprised me at every step of writer's journey. She is here from these two writers now. In the hyper online world where most of us watch Russia's war in Ukraine unfold from a distance. There is little information we can't access, but having access is not enough. The most important thing is what we choose to do with that information. In the earlier draft of this piece, a British friend asked, what is the word no one wants to hear. I had fallen into the echo chamber trap thinking everyone's Twitter feed was filled like mine with the same word. Genocide. Had my friend not heard about the Kremlin's consistent denial of Ukrainian identity about the filtration camps Ukrainians are being deported to, or about Putin publicly inciting the elimination of Ukrainians as people. In the news, she said, but it's so hard. Sometimes I turn it off. As with the Rubens obstacle illusion, all the information we need is in plain view, but so often our eye goes elsewhere. Whether we struggle to make sense of the shapes, or we simply choose not to see them. This information hovers in the undefined negative space that allows us to acknowledge its presence while diverting attention elsewhere. This spot allows to take up contradictory positions, reveling in our own ambiguity, asking for peace, yet refusing to arm, calling ourselves allies, while refusing to listen. The experiences shared from Ukraine asked us to step out of this position and consider events from another side. Peter sculpture was difficult to look at because Peter knows terrible things are terrible to look at. And when we were overloaded with too many of the same stories, we disconnect. This is the media fatigue Putin is counting on. It is the deaf ear we turn. And it is far more powerful than any propaganda the Kremlin is pushing. The only antidote to these informational black spots is not fact checking, but listening. I go back into the shelter, wrap myself in a blanket, pick up my phone again. I should say better in life, but I keep reading. Two men on the bench next to me are talking softly. Instinctively, I listen. What do they know? And how? I no longer ask myself if it's true. I only ask whether I can endure this. Today Kiev will be bombed. Today Kiev will be surrounded. Today is still here, but there will be no tomorrow. How many more of these scenarios can I take? Would I be able to remain calm, to wait and see whether this new prediction comes true or turns out to be another lie? We are taught to think critically, to make informed decisions. In the chaos of the invasion's first days, I started to question whether that was even possible. We are lost, frightened. We don't know anything. Sometimes I think that I can only trust my ears, but they don't always hear the truth either. They hear explosions. A hit would tell the child their lower voices. A hit echoed the news channels. Who was it? Us or them? What was it? Did we shoot it down or did it hit the target? The only sound I can trust is the beating of my heart. Perhaps it is enough for now. Thank you. I absolutely love how these pieces work together. I think that this cross-cultural pairing has been an absolute success. There is something similar in the style these two writers approach their subject. Also, I think they complement each other absolutely perfectly. Even if you look at the titles, how do you know on which side they end with a question mark? There is this correspondence even on this level. I basically want to talk Phoebe and Lena, how they work together and what they learned from each other and how their perspectives enhance each other's writing. Whoever is ready to begin. Please let us know where you are based currently. Don't be shy. We've been through this. I feel that Phoebe is ready to begin, but yes, Mike on. Brilliant. I think one of the things that worked really nicely when Lena and I were talking about what we wanted to write about was we were both quite insecure of our topics. On the one hand, I was worried that mine didn't contain enough personal experience or emotion, but it was all very wordy and academic. And I think Lena on the other side was saying, oh, I'm worried that mine is too reliant on all this sort of raw experience and personal emotion. And I say, no, that's what I want to bring into mine. So we had this really nice kind of realization that actually our pieces would be different. They would contain different things purely based on where we were and what we were experiencing. And actually, that's kind of what's nice about writing these pieces together. And this is the same, I think for all, all pairs. Not every piece can do the same thing as what their partner's piece can do and they shouldn't. That's not the point. They're supposed to complement each other. So I was very reassuring hearing my anxiety's mirrored back at me. Thank you. And Lena's pieces, of course, based in the underground parking during the battle for Kiev, and it's a quite unique perspective. So yeah, I'm just curious what Lena, what you've learned from this collaboration. Well, yeah, as Phoebe told, it was such a successful pairing because Phoebe's piece is just, it's so advanced and it works on so many levels and offers so many deep reflections, academic-wise. And it just allowed me to, you know, to just go along with the personal story and call it a day. Yeah, so I think I, from the very beginning I was very worried if I have anything to say on this topic and I decided that the best way for me to make it work is just to tell my story, like to offer my personal experience and hope that people will somehow resonate with it. So yeah, that's how it was. And all in all, Lena's personal experience turns out to be very intellectual and very thoughtful, so I can't recommend reading it enough. Also, I just love how all these writers complement each other. We had amazing time during those six weeks, so the summer, as I'm sure all of you know, sort of into it. I think it's time for us to discuss our work in a general Q&A. I'll have probably one question for you so that our audience warms up and prepares their questions. And the question will be quite general. Basically, how has the experience of Ukraine lab changed your views of Ukraine or your approach to your writing? And whoever is ready to tell us about the experience, just raise your hands and we'll pass the mic to you. Chris? Well, I feel that maybe it would be more appropriate to say that the experience of working with Ukrainian writers in the Ukraine lab has only reaffirmed what I already knew about Ukrainians and Ukrainian literature and all of everything that entails. I still, I feel very, even though Ukraine is very much in the world's focus right now politically in the media and such, the world is yet to discover all of these sort of wonderful jewels of Ukrainian literature and other expressions of culture, whether that be music or film or theater, whether it be culinary or art, or I think a very important lesson Ukraine has for the rest of the world, certainly for the rest of Europe right now, is I think you define and you define yourself and you agree on the principles you have as a society through your cultural products. And if you want to be brave, if you want to be democratic, if you want to be fair, all of these things which everybody at least in conversation agrees are good things to have. Well, it's one thing to talk about it, but how do you teach people to be truthful, to be democratic, to be reasonable, to be creative, to be whatever, in my opinion you do that through culture, you transmit these ideas through culture and Ukrainians are really inventive in doing this. I mean, in the West they call it magic realism, for me it's just how Ukrainians tell stories. There's a great creativity in the way Ukrainians process a narrative. Yeah, yeah, that's that's about it. I totally agree with that. And there has been this posture traveling all over Europe, be brave like Ukraine and I think we would all like to agree with that, right. Any other thoughts on what has changed for you in the course of UkraineLab or after UkraineLab, maybe in terms of your own writing, not only your views of the country you were writing about. Katya? I might add that for me it was challenging to write more about my personal experience and I was all the time asking how much myself I should put in this text, how much knowledge, how much embodiment experience, like memories and so on because I was thinking that it's too much, if this is enough, it would not be interesting to people read this but then I gave up and I use a lot of my thoughts and my imaginations and I think that it's also somehow contributed to this poetic as you mentioned before. And I really like when I was recording this, the beginning of my text, I really liked that it looks like a poetry. And I did not write the poetry, I think I'm not talented at this but it gives me some courage to try to to use some other forms. And I think that this is also influenced by Tamara Hunderova and also my partner in lab because we talk a lot how it could be possible and joining the fan of not boring research methods and not boring writing and I think that he's also doing quite a good job in this so I think it's a big contribution of UkraineLab for me. Thank you. I love that the lab has encouraged you to explore a more personal approach to writing. And I think quite a few among us would resonate with this answer. And I'll give the word to Sophia in a second and I just want to encourage our audience to type their questions in the Q&A box, Sophia. Yeah, thank you. For me, the main challenge for me, main challenge for me it was fighting about the safe place. Because of course when you are going to, for example, Bucher, Pinbrojanka, and places were hitting so much with a lot of people's stories, like stories of cruelty, of course you have a lot of things to write about. And to have this passion to write about this and just going back and this kind of psychotherapy to write about this. But if I go, if I go somewhere, if I went somewhere with no bench or no ruins or something, I can't write about this. Of course you are going through something, but I haven't the words to explain this. But UkraineLab gave me a great opportunity to write about our happy moments. Not write about dirty, not write about losing people, losing people you love and like and not about all this mess Russia bring to our country, but write about exactly happy moments of the beginning of the war. And write about young people like me being 25 in Ukraine around 25 just having their use laws because of Russia came into our country in 2014. And we haven't, we were not like we were working so hard. And as I mentioned before, we are hedonists. So we are trying to find any way to have some happiness and fun and parties. But of course it interests us greatly and for me it's so interesting to discover my generation and to write about the generation are going to rebuild this country. And unfortunately this mess is our responsibility to the end of our lives. Thank you so much, Sophia. What I always liked about your approach to the lab and to your work in general is that you're always striving to be the most truthful witness. And you learn how to witness and you take this as your responsibility and I think that your piece is a beautiful witness to what happened to Lviv and to you and to your friends at the very beginning of this war. And yeah, we could be happy at the darkest of times. Joni. I think yeah it was, I think like just echoing what everyone else has already said like it, the ability to like write personally was something for me that was a new thing coming from more academic background. And as Katya said, it's kind of like more exciting kind of research that's, you know, not as dry as I would usually do. And I was a bit worried about that at first and then really enjoyed it and it's definitely changed what I want to do in the future. I want to write more like that and enjoy writing like that more than I do my normal job stuff. But my piece was like, based on research and what I learned was I spoke to several people in Ukraine. I was in Ukraine during Ukraine lab and in the UK for part of it, but I spoke to, you know, 10 Ukrainians as part of the research and all of whom were willing to give up their time and speak to me about this like, you know, creative essay during the war. Just that generosity to keep going as Sophia was saying, like people wanted to keep going on with their lives and had the time to speak to me. And that kind of like, definitely Ukraine lab helped me to process what was going on a lot, a lot more than I had been previously. That was obviously like massively helped by everyone here who we could speak really open with like from the first session it was like kind of a group therapy thing going on like from day one. And also like that wasn't just by mistake, it was, you know, several people came in and coached us through that which like Sasha probably can talk about like the people that were invited to run these things. And so yeah, it was just like a, it was massive for me. I feel like I grew as a writer started to learn what I want to do with my writing more but also process this huge event and that was happening in everyone's lives and is still happening. And I want to read more of your creative stuff and everyone's creative stuff. As someone who has sort of sent you moved from academia to more alternative pathways I can appreciate how inspiring it can be to write in this way. Do we have more responses to this from Lena and Phoebe and Well, I can only repeat what everyone else is saying is that how challenging it was for me to write a personal story. Because I mostly work as a journalist with other people's story and I'm used to writing about other people's experience. And I thought that this is the Ukraine lab is like my chance to change that and to try to tell a bit about myself. And having the support from you Sasha and from Phoebe and from everyone from the Ukraine lab. It was just so rewarding and I thought that this is this is the right time to go for it and to see what I can write. And that worked out perfectly. Phoebe would you like to chip in? Yeah, I think I think the one thing I would add is that so much of what I got out of Ukraine was the discussions with everybody during the sessions. And a lot of it was we were talking about things that I'd sort of been conscious of, you know, for the last eight months but not really formulated or put into words. And I don't know I think it's something that we're probably quite familiar with that that that process of consuming the news and and talking about the news and reporting on the news. And we've got journalists here in the group but it was something that I was so aware of in February of posting on Instagram stories or checking the number of people that had watched my stories or who was reposting who was still paying Ukraine attention. And these are kind of all things that I was super aware of and I wanted to talk about but I wasn't really sure how to talk about them. And I think that's where the discussions with everyone else really helped but also the sessions we had from the from the writers and the experts that came to talk to us. And I think it's something that we've talked about here. I mean, Sashu said that Sophia is sort of bearing witness and and and that was a that was a major theme of like how we bear witness to our stories how we bear witness to other people's stories. And the session that really helped me was when Alessia did session about theater and documenting war because it was talking about all the things I've been worried about that hadn't really consciously registered and this thing of being a witness but being an active witness and making other people active witnesses. And I think that's sort of what I wanted to get to is how we actively consume things and how we then present the truth in a way that makes other people consume. I won't use the word truth but but consume the information we're giving them in a way that we feel is that delivers the message we want to deliver. Yeah, it was just a lot of a lot of good discussions where everything kind of clicked into place. Thank you. And there is a question which we have partly covered already, but I'll read it anyway. Elena mentioned finding courage and Sophia talks of safe places has your writing giving you a network or community to make you feel supported. I guess the answer is a unanimous note here. And I'd like to read you on response that is not a question but is nevertheless very interesting from Natalie McLaugh. This is not a question but more, but more an amazing appreciation for what you all have done and how it inspires me. My father was a refugee in the 40s after the Nazi invasion of Ukraine and the and our family suffered subsequently because of the Soviet occupation. There was so much pain and suffering then and people said it would never happen again, but it did. It inspires me to write about his experience and mine reconnecting with my culture and my family suffering now. Thank you so much for what you have done. One day I will have courage to face the pain and try to like you. And now the actual question for all of you. Who are the writers who have inspired your resistance? Sasha, I'm going to have to jump in first because I didn't hear the question. Could I ask you to repeat it? So the question is who are the writers who inspired your resistance? Ukrainian or otherwise? Let's start with Ukrainians. Zhedan. Brilliant. So here Zhedan definitely because especially his poetry. The thing that I think like Zhedan is kind of quintessential whether he likes it or not. He's sort of become a quintessential an icon of this world in terms of writers because number one he's from Luchansk Oblast. He's from I believe Stara Bilsk, which has been occupied this year. And then the city that he made his home, Harkiv, is, well we all know how bad things have been there this year. What's notable to me is that he writes about war but rather than focusing on the actual hostilities he focuses on the relationships between people. And the way it affects people's relationships, the way it changes, it might turn people against each other, it might bring people closer. But there's that incredible empathy that he has when he writes about the way Ukrainians interact with one another in times of war. And I'm thinking particularly of one poem of his which I won't quote it full but one way he describes loving somebody is being afraid for them. And it was always a very beautiful passage but it only really connected for me here like living here in Lviv during like recent attack, during the air raid, sirens and all of these things where I realized that people living here, they're afraid but never for themselves. But it's always for other people. It's always for their spouse. It's always for their relatives, their neighbors. The fear is always for somebody else. It's never for themselves. We have it here in our building, somebody set up an emergency kit in the lift so that if there's a power blackout because of a bombing there and you should be so unfortunate that you get stuck in a lift when the electricity gets cut off. You have everything at hand so that you can survive the blackout, which is an excellent example of that sentiment of to love somebody is to be afraid for them. I love this example so much. It's really thoughtful and moving and I think Sophia wanted to jump in. Yeah, we are lucky to be in the city, me and Chris, we both are lucky to be in the city without blackouts. It was only one day, so we are really privileged. But basically, I like day and a half in my building. So basically, I have a story to, like I must tell that it was so hard to start reading after the full scale invasion. Like, basically we were not reading, we were not listening to music and watching no videos, no films because it was so hard. Like, these things are helping you escape the reality, but in this situation it was quite dangerous to escape the reality at all. But I started to read with Philip Sands East West Street. For me it was like happy-end book because of like it's ending with a tribunal. So now all of us are expecting for a tribunal and working on the future tribunal. And also, but I haven't read, like after I was reading Peter's book, Peter's Pomeranian books and some books connected to propaganda and Russia because Sophia was connected to my work. But I started to read after my friend, he has joined as armed forces after the 21st, like basically in the 25s. He asked me to read him a poem. So now I'm reading the best Ukrainian poem of 20th century, like Sturz, who was, who died in 18, 1985 in Russia, a concentrated camp, basically. I'm going through the Ukrainian poets and after reading these pieces after the full-scale invasion and me, like, was kind of connected to some struggles. I realized that sometimes people are telling the Ukrainian independence in something was presented to us, like, or Lenin has created Ukraine on a lot of this like propaganda stuff, but reading these poems of people died really young, especially in 30s. You realize that our independence is built on blood and Russia wants more blood, more Ukrainian blood to build its empire and it's quite important to go to, like, it's not to roots, but some older texts that just to remind these people were also happy, loving and and had an ease as all the Ukrainians are. I love ending on this note. And I think Catherine, I wanted to add something. Yeah, I agree with with that fact that Jordan is very important to us right now. And for me, he's important since 2007 when I started be a student in Donetsk and in this way as I start looking and read Ukrainian contemporary literature. And he of course was the iconic hero for all the Eastern Europeans scholars and, you know, young people. And that fact that he's still in Harkiv and he helped. And he is brilliant speech in Germany recently, I think it gives us a lot of inspiration and the courage and the power as well but also I would say that for me, very inspiring to see not it's not connected only with literature but what all people doing in Ukraine now. How do they work and how do they think in that that's still like being an even a block out and key if they're still doing something creative writing doing music and doing their permanent job and everything that they did before the war and full scale invasion, and even more the war and full scale invasion gives them more rage and power to create this new pieces is with a new, I don't know, just maybe more deeply and more. I would repeat it again creatively but like more vividly. And the last but not least that in the Ukrainian army for forces now lots of writers, and which inspires me a lot is that still being in the frontline and fighting they writing to New York here to many other foreign magazines, who like trying to find someone brilliant someone more famous. And of course they saying yes because they know that today we have this privilege to speak and we can be heard by many people. But not even because of that I think that they really want to speak about the situation and be in behalf of all other people who cannot speak and who cannot emphasize all of this issue that we have now. And I really want to encourage you to read a term check and a term check by two female writer, sorry male writers and soldiers as well. And it's also interesting to me that they not presenting Ukrainian soldiers as someone who, you know, have no emotions or who cannot be insensitive or something like this. Showing completely another angle of being Ukrainian soldiers and that it means that you very far from your families that you are very far from your kids but you want to be with them. And this is gives lots of inspiration for all of us who now abroad and for trying to communicate from this side about Ukrainian situation that we still on the one boat and we still, you know, trying to do our best for our victory. Thank you Katya and we have time for Johnny to add his thoughts and may I ask you to be reasonably brief because we are running out of time. Yeah, I think there's an easy answer that's a bit cliche but it's very true that everyone here, the four Ukrainian people on this call and one who's probably watching like I just reading each of those pieces together was like really phenomenal and following all of Sasha's work was really good. And I think those are these people are actually people who are learned most from, but then as Katya was saying, like people who are not necessarily writers but artists and architects like Nikita Khadan writing about how to engage with Russian artists during the war was like really interesting to me and really powerful. And musicians that I used to listen to when I lived in Kiev like John Object, this people who are posting on Instagram like daily stories from the front line it's just quite, yeah, not literature, you know, but stuff reading every day that very powerful. Thank you so much. And I guess this is the time for me to unfortunately say our goodbyes but first to say our thank yous. Thank you so much to the amazing questions from the audience. I've not had time to read all of them but I will pass your thoughts and your questions to the writers maybe they will have a chance to get in touch privately. Thank you to the brilliant writers of Ukraine lab it's been such a joy to see your faces again thank you so much for your amazing work which I think is very important and I recommend to everyone who has not yet done this to read all the pieces. And thank you to our partners who've made this project possible the Ukrainian Institute that is in Kiev, Ukraine, British Council and of course the British Library who have hosted this fantastic event. Thank you it's been a privilege to be in this space under the like invite logo the British Library. And I hope it's not the last time that we are doing something like this together. Thank you all, Slava Ukrainiya.