 Hello. Thank you for staying to listen to our discussion, despite the lack of the break. Today, this is the second part, as I can say, of the discussion on the NGOs. And the Iranals just spoke about the importance of public sector, especially in these crisis times. And now we'll talk with the people who I think played and keep playing a very important part in this public sector of culture. And the topic of this discussion is with the culture communities, and I'm really happy and honored to moderate this discussion because I admire every speaker and participant. And those people played an essential part in building the cultural communities in the activation of this public sector of culture and even more. Let me introduce our participants, Diana Burg, Olena Fanasieva, Vitaly Matukhno, founder of the gallery, and Yulia Krivich, founder of the Solidarity Palace of Culture. I also forgot to mention the locations of these institutions. So, Diana is from Marupul, Olena is from Korsan, Vitaly is from Lisichansk, and Yulia is from Warsaw. So, you can see the geography is really wide and calls for a lot of emotions. I think it will be interesting discussing that because of all those challenges that each of the participants faced. At first, I'm giving the floor to each of the participants for them to speak briefly about their initiatives, about their activities, in case any of you doesn't know about the work of those initiatives before the war, and about how these activities changed after the full-scale invasions and whether it's possible to continue because each of the initiatives was connected with the rebuilding of the community, sometimes from scratch. And now, there is no access to those territories, so I wonder how the cooperation with these communities can be continued on the background of those blackouts, evacuations, etc. So, at first, there is Diana speaking about her platform too. Can you hear me? Hello everybody. I'd like to play the movie. Thanks. In the background, you can see a movie by our artist, Marsha. You will see Mariupol as of style, factory. You can even turn off the sound. There are no dialogues here. You can see Mariupol as it looked during the war but prior to the full-scale invasion. It was in 2021. This movie presents Mariupol and it shows the two platforms as a team. We created it in 2016 when I, together with my friends, we moved from Donetsk, where we were originally from, due to the Russian occupation of Ukraine. We used to be 20 kilometers away from the front line and we promoted human rights and freedoms through cultural activism in the local sphere and modern art. I will be commenting on the video. As this video, Marsha, the author, was comparing the art of style, as you can see right now, with the activity of the platform. It's called Sector. You can see this factory is kind of outside the center. You can see it's quite symbolic. I decided to put this as the background of my speech as this video presents the greatest audience as we rediscovered this year. It's the youth, it's teenagers. We had a project, Astraklots, in which we understood for ourselves, we comprehended that working with youth and teenagers is vital. I will not get into the details but in 2021 this is what was most important for us. You can see the people with whom we cooperated, I hope you can recollect on your very warm and positive memories. It's very difficult to discuss this in the past tense because these memories are so vivid. I deeply understand that the city, as it was, does not longer exist. Last year we were surrounded by a huge community of teenagers. This is an Ukrainian underprivileged marginalized group from underprivileged areas. The parents were far from perfect and the prose of life was unfortunately very poignant. For the teens, they understood that their future is quite limited, is to go to church and to drink. So for them we organized some hope. We presented them with exhibitions, with concerts. As youth we understand teens from 15 to 20, as you can see in the background they are just having fun. Obviously there are more than the ones presented in the video. Our activity was centered around organizing their time so that they can have fun. When it comes to the current situation we managed to evacuate, we managed to survive. Some of the people unfortunately were captured but the platform TU fortunately managed to evacuate. Most people managed to evacuate. David actually unfortunately was captured and just in a matter of a few days ago he managed to escape as Russian captivity. People were deported together with their families, unfortunately to Russia. And then for Ukrainians it was very difficult to run away, back to Ukraine or Europe. We organized a rescue group together with Masha and Denise. They were the mentors of our cluster. They knew the mentality of these children, the story behind each and every kid. Within the past nine months they managed to evacuate to Europe or internally into Ukraine about 220 teens from our community. We are very much community centered. Right now we take care of dozens of kids, some of them lost their parents, some of them are members of minority groups, LGBTQ groups. And we just want to listen to their stories and to support them. They are saying that I managed to survive two months in the shelter without any light, without any support. And I survived. For example, Vladik Pyatin for 30 seconds a day he was turning on his camera to record anything that was happening. Right now he is in Dublin and then he took all these records and he edited everything and created a video. These children actually do not want to be called children. So speaking of youth, they helped us feel as community as a whole. Thank you very much. Diana, thank you very much. It was a very impressive story and it's really relevant to our discussion. I'm really impressed how you as a cultural institution became something much bigger than that. So that it's not only like cultural connection, but it went beyond this and helped people survive horrible challenges. So that platform to you acted as a shelter. Yes, I will just add that to your platform as a building right now became a shelter because we gave the keys back to the neighbors who had no shelter. So underground people managed to hide there and took some other people as well. We are very happy that they could use this opportunity. So indeed, yes, we became something more than just a platform. I just want to ask another question. You are not experiencing this for the first time refugee issue. So you created the community actually from scratch and at some point this movement started to evolve really rapidly and this happened thanks to you. Right now you are forced to relocate again to Kiev, as I understand, yes. I wanted to talk about this too pronged approach and do you think you'll be starting this activity again from scratch? Or would you like to remain in contact with Mariupol as well? Well, unfortunately, I'm quite out of strength, but subjectively speaking emotionally and mentally it was really difficult for me to lose my second home even on the first day because in Mariupol I was building purposefully. My efforts were much, much, much, much bigger than when building my first home. Actually, yes, being relocated is part of my belonging. It was much more difficult for the second time because in 2014 when the war started this experience gave me the opportunity to help others. For example, I knew that it is necessary when you're on the run but you really don't know when it's going to happen. Though it was really much more difficult for me and right now it is still really, really difficult on the emotional and mental level. We created an emergency fund really quickly because it's fundamental that when you escape an occupied area it is important to have something for yourself. For example, when you're in the shelter for one month you don't have access to the dentist and one person really suffered from dental problems. So we needed the support of the authority of in the first place European Union partners who would finance our fund. We had 42,000 euros that helped 420 families living in under occupation in Mariupol. This experience helped me understand the needs. On the other hand, coming back to your question, do I have strength? Well, I'm completely devoid of any strength in terms of physical resources. I'm completely depleted. As a team, we turned online but we work with the local community, mostly with teens, with teenagers. This double experience of the relocation is, to half of our team is Masha, Denise, Yuta. The people who were all relocated to Mariupol after me. It was really strange to why you came from Donetsk to Mariupol. I believe this is a really great example of how you can create a community. It's maybe illogical but yes, this happened. Right now we're quite dispersed around the whole world. You can look back at our community, the stories that were continued. Some people remained in Ukraine, some people moved elsewhere, abroad. In short, I don't want to talk about my lack of strength but yes, the community is working. But the third time it's really hard. Thank you, Diana. I'd like to give the floor to Elena Afanasyeva and listen to the story about the Centre of Cultural Development. I'm from Kyrsten. I hope everyone was happy for us and drinking some alcohol for us in November. Thank you. Thank you from all of us. Well, thank you from all of these of us. As for Totem, we've been working for, you know, NGOs don't live that long as we've been working. We've been working since 1996 as some initiative group. Three years later we started operating as the NGO. And there was the need for creating the community and taking care of bringing the modern culture to Kyrsten. Because, let's be honest, this is the cultural province. And there was no modern culture. But if you lack anything, you should take responsibility and do that for yourself. And that's what we started to do. For all these years, we've managed to build a great cultural community. I've always said that once you come to Kyrsten, you will definitely love it. Because Kyrsten was about the people, not about the watermelons or architecture, but about the people that we've seen now. I mean those thousands of our people. And while our collaborative former officer, official Saldar, who said that these are actors, you know it's not true, there are people from our town. So we've made this initiative that let us make amazing projects, performances of the European level. That let us build some visual programs for the past two years before the war. We hosted Google Fest. We made the local visual program. So we basically could do anything. And it was not just like a bubble, but an extended community. So Totem was a platform where you could do anything and find any connections and networks. We've created the urban garden in Kyrsten, in the territory of the former plant. And now it's always remembered by everyone who talks about Kyrsten. So just for you to know, we had everything and we definitely didn't need to be saved by Russians. Six weeks after the February 24, we were shocked. We were silent, even inside our network. We didn't know what and how to talk. But two months later, when we just came to our senses a bit, my partners and I, we left when we heard those explosions at the Antonievsky Bridge, because we had those shelters in the cellars for our international partners. And now, you know, people internationally are amazed by the number of those torture rooms found, discovered in Kyrsten after the release, because everyone was caught by Russians. Even those teenagers with just the Ukrainian flag, they were also put to those torture rooms. And it was just a matter of survival for us. And so, then two months after the beginning, we realized that we're nothing without the community. We started gathering in Zoom, and the first question for everyone was, where are you? Because if you see a person online, it means the person is alive. And it was like that kind of register of cultural heritage, but here we had the register of human. We saw people living from different, through different parts. And we saw artists starting to leave, and now they are in different countries, even in Greenland. And starting from those Zoom calls, we understood, well, at first we were just like talking to each other about trying to understand where we are and what we do. But for those Zoom calls turned into the exhibition, which we called Kyrsten Inside and Outside, because no matter how weird it can be, we still had some people left in Kyrsten, and our mission was to support them, because many of them made the conscious, aware decision not to leave Kyrsten. And many people, they were on TV and said that Kyrsten is Ukraine, we all know it. But if everyone leaves and there is no Ukrainian left in Kyrsten, how can we say that? That's the reason we stay. So we made this kind of exhibition, Kyrsten Inside and Outside, which was exposed in different cities. And there was also some reflection helping us realize, process our experience as displaced persons, experience of living under occupation. There's a lot of opinions about how we feel this new space, how we get integrated, how we support each other, what we took with ourselves. There was this very creative task, just look at your emergency bag and check what part of Kyrsten did you put there that you shouldn't have. And so that's how we began rebuilding our connections with Kyrsten, because of course it was the matter of surviving, of making up the life. But do you have any connection to the city? At the same time we've created, we engage the Ukrainian community who knew the totem. We collected histories about civilian Ukrainians. This project was called LIVD-BRA, which was created for Europe about our collective security. And about each of us being, well you know, it was about those vests, bulletproof vests. They were drawn on bodies of different public figures. And we were saying like that war is like a tattoo is under our skin already and it's in every detail. And we continue this project speaking with Europe and it's in Prague now. And so this is what I introduced last week. These are the chronicles of the embroidered Ukrainian shirt. One of our activists who stayed in Kyrsten, well she finally left. And she left after the release and every day she made those chronicles, those diaries of the embroidered shirt. So you must know that there is this belief, old Ukrainian belief that you make a wish and start embroidering the shirt. And once it's done, the embroiderment is done, the wish will come true. And so this activist started this embroidery when the war started. And by the end she worked on it every day. She had four shirts during the war and she had only one reality every day that there is no other way other than Kyrsten being the part of Ukraine and military coming and saving, releasing us. So I invited our great community to choose one day out of those diaries, those chronicles to get close to Kyrsten to relieve that experience of occupation. And now we're gonna talk about this project and present it as a very practical case made or invented for renewing, reconnecting all Ukrainians to our home. And last week one of our authors, also a woman from Kyrsten, she made an answer, formulated an answer to the question, are you gonna come back? So she said, I will come back to Kyrsten if there is at least one person who will wait for me. And so now here comes the question. As cultural managers we potentially cannot turn into those waiters, just sitting and waiting. Instead we can do something and today I'm really grateful to the representative of the culture ministry because that was the first time that I heard when the activities of public sector was recognized. I realized that that same recognition is needed for volunteers but speaking about the domain of culture you're the first who said that you recognize the contribution of the public sector and of NGOs into this cultural resistance. So we should preserve it. I'll also come up to you talking about returning to those deoccupied territories about what cultural policies we should have. Yesterday I heard from one person from the cultural institution who said that they need, like we need donations, we need grants. And it's not about the money because well I know that those deoccupied territories there will be in the center of attention but we shouldn't just blindly put money there, we should make kind of like a roadmap to understand how we will come back. Not just waiting but making, creating that local policy. And for the question if I have, I feel strong enough to do that, before the conference I was sure that I'm not, but now when I see there are many people like me here I see that we will go on. Thank you, I think later we'll discuss the matter of the occupation in more details. But I'd like to ask you, well you said that part of the artists you used to work with stayed in Kursun. So are you in touch with them now after the occupation and has this occupation affected the culture community? They're awesome, they stay, many of them after the the occupation evacuated their families but they have some pets and old parents left there. So they stayed and they send us pictures of them being in coffee houses with the electricity drinking coffee. So the community did stay in Kursun but thanks to feeling supported because we raised funds for them, we made some stipendiums for them and people there under occupation they made amazing art projects. For example one artist made this capsule of time and for like, his pieces of art were such that he would be really shot by Russians for them. And so he made this capsule and we're thinking that maybe we shouldn't break it and just keep it. So those projects they were great and they continue, those artists come back to the Kursun region. And for example there's this director, theater director who came back home and saw that a part of some machine, some vehicle came to his, fell to his garden and his son died at the front line. And so I realized that it's hard but I suggested to him being very cautious. I suggested them like packing that experience into some art project. And now the stipendium is over, he's made all those art reports but he keeps sending me that material. So he made the installation out of it, like it's the beautiful part of the beautiful land art on the garden which was not processed this year. So now I'd like to pass the floor to Vitaly Manukhnov and his gallery. Good morning, I'm the founder of Artistic Movements project. It's been mutating, I really can't really say what it is. It was created as an experimental project that did not have its area. So we were making the exhibition in galleries which were abandoned. One of the locations was not a true art gallery but an abandoned one. I worked a lot with our local activists and the mayor and the council and I was battling over everything with them and the freedom necessary for me to make these events in my city, to create a community is impossible in regular institutions in our country. So when I want to get my freedom I need to go to places without people who can stop me. So places which are without any authority, without any people, simply abandoned places. I would say we work with anarchy. This format had no form as such. I decided to make it really flexible and not connected to any location, to any place. But there was an audience of young people from Donetsk and Luhansk regions. I needed to understand how our art scene looks like of young creators living there together with me. Because indeed there were very few projects that included cooperation with young artists from the east. A lot of artists came to Donbass to explore it but nobody understood whether there is some community on the side. So I decided to find them and explore this issue in detail to identify the community. When it comes to occupied territories I live quite close, let's say, in quite a close vicinity, 23 kilometers from the front line. And I understand that beyond this border, the front line, I don't know what's happening. So the occupied territories and the so-called separatist republics, they live in a bubble. So I think that within the past, they've been living for the eight years probably without any understanding of what Ukraine is. They probably forgot what Ukraine can really mean. All the news I've heard about these territories, it was strictly military news actually. So I didn't know what was happening inside there and this is why I started digging. It was really important for me to work with artists from occupied territories to bring together our region at least in improvised exhibition areas in abandoned places. To create something, let's say, alive. Indeed it was a vital part of my activity. Right now the city of Lysichinsk, the town is occupied, Luhansk and Donetsk territory is occupied. And I don't think we'll continue working in the same format. I'm quite doubtful about returning even to this location, but I hope it's going to happen someday. Even when the full-scale invasion was started, I understand people started leaving the place. Last year we created our first zine. Yeah, it's a presentation also connected with Platform 2. We cooperated with it after all. We organized this exhibition in many cities across Ukraine. And we made an exhibition in Mariupol, Lysichinsk, Serbiansk, Kramatorsk, Rubizhnia, Konstantinist, Kharkiv, Rivna. All the cities we worked in, apart from Rivna, right now are afflicted by the war. Rubizhnia and Serbiansk completely destroyed by the war indeed Mariupol, right? So right now, when I think what I'm going to do when I come back, it's really hard to wrap my head around it. But I really hope it will happen. Last year we created our first zine by the name of Neotodryosh. I understand I could not come back with everything. I wanted to create an autonomic product that can travel without me. This format includes or foresees the format of a printed zine magazine. It is a kind of a book, but with a lot of pages including works of over 50 artists from Luhansk and Donetsk regions. We distributed part of it and part of it of the printouts were left in Lysichinsk and maybe in Mariupol as well. I hope a lot that we will reprint it once again. After the full-scale invasion, I was evacuated to Lviv and sometime I was in some kind of suspended state. When I came to my senses, I understood that my responsibility for the risk community is quite huge. I cannot just sit empty-handed, I just need to act. A lot of people like Tiana who were migrating, who were refugees, there were some resources for me to start my life from scratch. I understand that not for everybody it was possible because our community is really diverse including youth. For example, a person from Tkramotarsk who escaped from his parents who were pro-Russian, he is right now like 16, 17 years old, so he cannot work. He lives somewhere at somebody's place, it is very difficult for such people. I can say this based on my experience and my teams. Every team member was relocated even for the second time. We created a small support fund. We collected some donations from people all across the world including America, Europe and international organizations as well. We helped about 200 people, this number will be on the rise. I hope we are working, we have been working on it. We have some possibilities to support a number of people. We are starting an open call for support and this is the data we made public. We also try to work this year on the international market as well. I would say to make a contribution to popularize Ukrainian art. This photo is from a collaboration with Goethe Institute in the city of Bonn. In Germany this is our biggest exhibition I myself could not actually attend. It was an exhibition in the public sphere in a dozen of biggest, largest German cities in Germany at bus stops in metro stations. People could see it for two and a half months every single day when they were commuting. This exhibition displayed the works of artists in our community. It is a shame I could not see it myself but it was really successful. Another project we started as our site. I understood that I have never spoken in my life so often with our community about the war as much as we have been experiencing it for the second time. With the artists from Luhansk and Donetsk regions they were located for the second time. Now I am 23 years old and in 2014 I was 15 years old. I have been living in the state of war for 8 years so the war comprises a huge part of my life. There are many people like me. Such stories need to be collected and I want to give voice to such people. In Lviv I have often heard that ever since the war started so that is the name of the project. It was a question we asked people. It is divided into three parts. 2014, 2022 and the eight years. It is one of the stories we received from a girl from Avdivka. Personally for me there were years of silence, of peace. I could create festivals but actually the war has never ended. These stories we received are very, very various. There is very little in these stories about being strong. People write a lot about tragedies, about deaths, ruins, destruction. This is their experience. However they persevere regardless. This is the format of the stories. They say it as it is, as it was. This is what we wanted to give voice to. The stories in their words are not an interview format. We also supported them financially. As we understand it is a very painful experience for them to tell these stories. This is why I understood we needed to support them financially for their input. We also have been creating the second magazine last year. We decided it would be great to create a book like this every single year. But it would be different every single year. Right now the topic of the book would be about the full-scale invasion. We should not discuss this issue only with people from Donetsk and Luhansk Oblast. We received over 250 applications but we can only select 60. The presentation will take place on the 25th of December in Lviv. The printed zine will be free. I hope I can send you a copy to each and every one of you who is in the hall. This is an example of some pages from the zine. With a very nice design this is one of our specialties. It's really hard to say how to print it because all projects are delayed unfortunately. Our online archive 2022, all these stories are in Ukrainian and English. We publish it online but everything is delayed unfortunately. When you are interested to read this archive you can do it in English as well. You are welcome. I think this is everything. Thank you very much. Vitaly, thank you very much for your story. It's really interesting. You touched a really not easy topic about the big part of Ukrainian society. I have been feeling this experience of war after the full-scale invasion. But for many people this experience has been alive for eight years. I believe it's important for everyone to listen to the experience of people who have been inside this war much longer. I also want to ask, I believe it's really valuable what you do in your gallery working with artists from uncontrolled territories. We know what a hard topic it is to deal with people living in occupied territories. And it's one of the topics we'll have to touch upon in future. And what were the challenges for you that you faced working with those artists, those who maybe left those separatist republics after the full-scale invasion? In fact, speaking about those artists we used to work with, almost everyone left. But, well, it just happened so that not everyone has the Ukrainian passport. And even if, well, for example, the guy can be 17 years old and he just didn't have a chance to get the Ukrainian passport yet. But he cannot go to Ukraine now. We have this person like that. So they kind of have that DPR passport. And they were planning to go to Ukraine and make this passport according to some specific procedure, which would be, you know, lasting and not easy. Well, also, this would be challenging. But considering the context, the background they lived in, someone had it for eight years. Someone managed to leave the occupied territory before the full-scale invasion. And their context is totally different because, well, the occupation that they were under was a really, you know, such thing. For example, there was this art group in Donetsk under occupation. They tried, it was called Different, and they tried to work on different projects. They had this performance. And when they were preparing that, they said, like, why haven't we worked here before? Why it was hard for us? Just because we were scared of uncertainty, we didn't know what... It's like there's no public sector under occupation, you know. And everyone understands that if there is, well, there are any art projects or just some hanging out, it's a really, really rare thing. And these are the people who risk everything doing that. And that was one of the painful topics. They didn't do anything directly with the occupied territories. They were just collecting their works and presented them in Ukraine. Even in that format, they were really scared that anyone would see that. Anyone from that side would see that. So it was challenging. But I worked... I did that in such a way that we didn't mention directly that, like, this comes... This art comes from a person who lives under occupation in the DPR. No, we tried to show, and the reason of our cooperation with them was that I don't want to live in the world where we have those groups of DPR or LPR. And for me, it was like if I recognize them, then the notion of occupation will disappear. And I didn't want to recognize that. I knew that there couldn't be anyone wanting to be separated from Ukraine. And I wanted to show other people what Ukraine is. Because, you know, if there are some people who grew up under occupation, they have a totally different context. When now they come to Ukraine and they see and get surprised by a lot of things in Ukraine, they are surprised with the level of freedom they can have here. Thank you. I think this work with those artists from uncontrolled territories is a really unbelievable contribution of public sector into preserving the connections with those people under occupation. I would like to give the floor to Julia Krivich, who comes from a bit other discourse, but she will tell us about this Solidarity House of Culture, Sunflower, which was created after the war. So this is the first time for all this time when I introduced, present our project in Ukrainian. I should start with saying that I come originally come from Dnipro, and then Sunflower is associated with the Ukrainians, with the diaspora, even in Poland. With the Ukrainian culture workers and Polish culture workers, all of which were somehow related to the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. So I would start with the story of how this house appeared. And I will maybe tell you about how the situation looked from this side in Poland after the February 24, the first weeks after the invasion. There was panic, total panic here, because people didn't know what to do. I mean the Polish society now. They really wanted to help, they really wanted to do something. All this help that you saw on pictures, on TV, it mostly came from the people, not from the government, and I would like to emphasize that it's really important to mention it here in this palace, that this support was from the regular people. And the Museum of Modern Art also wanted to include... Well, I should start by saying that this place, this is the office of the Modern Art Museum, which is in the city center of Warsaw. And you can see at the picture that we have three flags, Polish, Ukrainian, and the international refugee flag. And on the third day after the invasion, we were shocked, coming to the museum, making some banners for... We wanted to go to the rally for the Russian Embassy in Warsaw. And that was the time when we stayed. Since then, we just have occupied the building of the museum. The curator has helped us. And there was the main team of our project comes from that museum. There are different people in terms of different aspects. So there are people who used to work in the museum, working with migrants, Ukrainian migrants in Poland. So it's me, I'm the artist and activist, educator. And since then... So that's when we stayed in the museum, we started different efforts, starting from collecting medicine to some humanitarian aid. We got contacts to different hospitals in Ukraine, and we arranged transportation, which... Well, we had almost every week there was someone coming to Ukraine with medicine. We made this kitchen of the sunflower initiative. People started coming there from the very first days, then the number of people increased. And people just saw those banners, those flags, and they came up to us and just... They were searching for some safe space. Yeah, that's what we wanted to create for us and for others. And these, you know, joint cooking, making, joint making something was an important element to create in our community. And so, just a fun fact, we started with making sandwiches, and then we brought them to different places in Warsaw where refugees from Ukraine came. And that transportation system was arranged so well, like every outlet, every hub with refugees knew that's what we do. And it was so large that all the artists, all the people of art made those sandwiches with us. And for the first months, we've made about 30,000 sandwiches. And it sounds funny now, but now when remembering that, I understand that this, you know, making sandwiches was like we have to do something, just no matter what, we just have to do something and we will do that. And very quickly, we realized that we would stay at that place, that we would create some safe space and make this initiative. And very quickly, we understood that different structures, different people can help us. And it's very interesting that the artists who used to work with the Modern Art Museum, they just wrote letters to the museum offering some funds and some help. Like, you know, Wolfgang Tillmans sent some money to us, Miam Khan. They sent some money to us, to our activities in the museum. And so since the beginning, it was just some, you know, quick sporadic random acts, level of support, but then it turned into understanding that this help is changing. And so at first it was just, you know, welcoming people, welcoming refugees, making some space for them. At the end, we understood that those people, they want to stay, they need some documents. So we had our friends, photographers came to us and said that they can help making like, they have the resource and they can make free photos for the identification documents. We made some outlets making copies of those applications and documents. So we also started the cultural program from the first aid to such joint efforts. For example, here you see the celebration of the Easter, the Orthodox Easter, because this year there was a weak difference between the Catholic and Orthodox Easter. And so all the artists made this celebration. Refugees from Chechnya made the Kukin, because they also have their community here where they cook and create, like make their, you know, small business. We cooperate with them. And so this wall, it's famous. It became like the visit card of our community. It was made by children of the women who used to come to us. We made some workshops for children. And so that's where children drew those sunflowers, which we later put on Monika Sosnovskaya's installation. And Monika is really happy that her installation has changed and got like updated as of now. Later, okay, it's also important to mention that Poland starting, you know, from the onset of war, Poland is also kind of a transit point for many people. And our connections with the cultural community of Ukraine was like we captured people coming through us and asked them to make something for us. And so these are, for example, some workshops from different, you know, artists. I don't have many slides, but it's hard to present the activities of sunflower in just five slides. So I just wanted you to understand that who we are here in Poland, because like this is the first time I have realized that I used to be a migrant here and my identity was the one of Ukrainian immigrant. Now after the full-scale invasion, I felt that that identity has changed into such a kind of a mediator. So just a mediator between the Ukrainian cultural environment and the Polish one. And it's important thing that I've understood recently that it also affects Polish culture. And of course we're invited everywhere because the Ukrainian voice must be presented everywhere now in Poland and it's really interesting. Our other activity, we've been collecting money all the time. We're finding out different ways how to collect money. Since the beginning we made some fundraising actions. We thought about some gadgets and merchandise. You can see the t-shirt in the slide titled The Colonised Russia. You can see in the other picture Magda Moravik, our friend, who helped us volunteer to support refugees on the railway stations. Right now she comes to Ukraine every month supplying Zaporizhia and Kiev with humanitarian aid. She was invited to the meeting of Ursula von der Leyen at the SOTM meeting. She asked what we can do. So she got a t-shirt from us and she advertised us in a way. Another important thing is Sonic Digest. It's a sister initiative of the Sunflower Organization. I'll come back to the story of the first days of the full-scale invasion. In the first week we organised a huge meeting of Polish artistic activists who needed to meet to understand what to do, how they can help and over 200 people arrived all across Poland. Artists, curators, activists who sat at the table together and they asked what do you need, what does Ukraine need? In this meeting we were divided into five groups, one of which we understood something was going on and we felt something is kind of weird and one of the groups was called Counter-Propaganda and this group resulted in Sonic Digest which is made of people from Ukraine but also other countries as well of Europe. This is a platform, a website where we disseminate Ukrainian voices, the Ukrainian point of view. We advertise Ukrainian, popularise Ukrainian art. And that would be it. Thank you very much, Julia. Within our panel today it's a very interesting case. Three previous cases were sent around a cultural activity that turned into mutual support with the full-scale invasion. In your case, however, it was the other way around. So you started your activity as a safe space from the will to help refugees out of which an artistic culture was created. I wanted to pose a question. Am I right that you could use the name community in this case? Initially, after all, people were brought together by common needs. Could you form a community out of these people? What kind of role art plays in this community then? Yes, obviously, as I said, this safe space was created to meet the needs of being together, to create such a community. People who came to us and have been coming to us have not remained in Poland. Many people who left the country at the beginning, they've moved along. They've moved forward ever since. But our core is made of around 20, 30 people who always come to us. They are not Ukrainian refugees only. They come from Poland as well, people from other countries as well. It is really important to emphasize that the future of our initiative as we understand it, must be a space. We understand that we are located in Poland. So there are refugees from other countries as well. So this is an important factor that we need to connect, unify them with the Ukrainian context. There are much, much more Ukrainians in Poland right now than prior to the full-scale invasion. According to official data, without seasonal migrants prior to the full-scale invasion, there used to be 1.4 million Ukrainians in Poland. Again, according to official data, 3 additional million Ukrainians came to Poland. Together, we have the number of 4.4 million Ukrainians, which constitutes roughly 10% of the Polish population. It's really hard to quantify, to be honest, but I would estimate 3.5 million Ukrainians stayed. Some of them obviously moved on to other countries as well. Our lectures and workshops are held in English because we want to connect the Ukrainian and Polish community, but we understand that English as lingua franca is available to everyone, as we also reach out to other people as well. My final point will be about the sunflower initiative as community. The sunflower indeed is quite symbolic of our community because even the very image of it, the very logo type, represents people in it. Thank you very much. Speaking about community, I would like to address the issue to everybody about the community of place. Today, we spoke about many topics and these communities were connected, kind of rooted to specific locations, even place in Marupol in Warsaw. Is it possible to create a community without connection to location, without physical access to it? Let me answer this question. You know, when I arrived here to Warsaw three days ago to take part in this assembly, I felt something overwhelming when I saw all of you, when I saw Ukrainian artists, curators, friends all across Ukraine, people in Europe as well. For the past three days, we were just talking, meeting. We just cannot let ourselves out. We just want to be together physically, be around, mingle together. This is an example of connections which, speaking about Marupol, it's really difficult as Marupol has been destroyed. So right now, personally, I come to understand and feel, experience this feeling of loss, physical location. It's a very weird feeling as I understand the physical aspect. It was really important. Marupol right now is scattered around the world. It is not concentrated. There is no weight attached to this area. It's my emotional feeling. It's very difficult to put this into words. But as we discuss on the social media, we try to bring the weight of our community down to Earth and to build upon this, at least in our minds. As we are so used to being attached to location, it might be a city. This would be important for us to relearn and to reinstate this physical locality as we record our memories of these areas starting from 2014. As Vitaly, for example, you have been doing this as a museum of memories, everything that we associate with Marupol. You must understand that Marupol is no longer as it used to be. For the past eight years, I had lived there. Marupol, I believe that these online exhibitions can replace the physical existence of Marupol. In our case, everything is quite more specific. We did not have our area. We just captured our area, these abandoned places. If you're speaking about a community or audience that participated in our exhibitions, it was quite specific as well. If we managed to collect our collection, you could say that there is some kind of diaspora there. Our project or our community, in essence, now happens online. To be honest, I haven't met them in person physically, especially people who live in the occupied areas. We don't know where somebody lives, where people are relocated, have been moving around. This community has been alive, in essence, without a specific location. Right now, they've been activated quite vividly. To reconnect them means to prove their existence, especially in the occupied areas. Right now, I see that they cooperate together in other projects, not connected with our gallery. I'm really happy for them. I wanted to voice this opinion. As I understand, this ephemeral project that moved to Reviv, to be honest, we didn't lose much. How can you lose an abandoned place that you intercepted? Some of the magazines, hopefully, will manage to reprint. It was very difficult for me to relocate. But for me, it was really important to live in the town of Lisicinsk, to work with local activities and local audience. So far, we've been trying to continue our activity in Reviv. This is our home right now. I do not have answers to these questions. On the one hand, Herzog is a new trend. So how can we talk about the community of Herzog without Herzog itself? On the other hand, we understand that, we've been talking about this for the past two days, that for Herzog, a new old window of opportunity opens. So right now, it can become the center of gravity. On the third side, being cognizant of the current situation, it's not the center of gravity, but rather the question mark of gravity. Because plenty of questions being in the center of the process of communicating with the community for the past nine months. I even invited an independent moderator who would look after our dynamics. Even Ms. Irina was talking about migration, occupation, and also people who left, who stayed. At the first stages, there was a wave of incredible hate between the ones who stayed and who left. Okay, you left, you abandoned us, you stayed, you're a collaborator. So in the middle, it was a wave coming on and off. So as far as people, how do you call it, the Monaco Battalion, as we call it, this happened in the culture sphere. As I made an exhibition in Odessa, museum workers said that after work they created a room. They've been creating camouflage networks. It was really difficult for them, for the people who left to see the photos of a beautiful sea on Odessa. It's really helpful for them. So even inside this professional community that worked together, I can say that actually I unfriended a lot of people, to be honest. So a photo of an artist in Greece, we left because we want to be far away from this context. We don't want to have a war in any media sphere. An artist needs to be beautiful and happy. But afterwards, I needed to work on my own, on myself, because I needed to understand that your own zone of freedom is your own choice. But this is my right with whom to work or not. It's a very complex process, it's very dynamic. So to create a center of gravity is actually probably not with this community you have been working with so far. If you look at the group, the psychologist, this moderator saw that you need to expand your bubble when it comes to your community. Within the past, following the 11th of November, I received numerous applications from other artists and institutions who want to come to her son and to work with you and represent you beyond. It is a very difficult question for me as well. I am afraid, because for the safety, I'm concerned for the safety. For example, her son Museum was also shelled, the second maripole may happen here as well. It's just a question of safety as well. To be honest, I'm really concerned about speculation in that sphere. We need to work with deep processes and not to just scratch on the surface. Yesterday, there was a very important discussion about time. It's really horrible that we do not have even time to think. These three days of our assembly was the sphere for us that allowed the time for us to think. Unfortunately, we do not have time to dive deep into the processes and only deep processes can reinstate our community. To make something, we want to come back. This is a question for me as well. Coming back to her son is to come back to a different war with these challenges we face right now in the culture of politics and the situation. I'll be brief, because in my case, I think the location is the key, because the space gives you a lot of opportunities. We can use the space as a gallery, as a place of meetings. For example, in summer, each of us is engaged in other initiatives connected to Ukraine, to helping Ukraine. For example, in summer, we worked more in the park. We made some events, some parties, and now when it's impossible to do that outdoors, we come back to the sunflower space located at Ponska Street 3. There's also the resource that we get from the museum, and it's the key here. The museum is an initiative and the answer to the question of how cultural institutions can leave and operate in the time of a temporary crisis. When we just came into that space, it was just the empty office because of COVID. So we came there when the war started. So I think this project is important for the museum because I think this community, this place will not be temporary. This crisis will last, I guess, and realizing the added value of crisis in cultural institutions in Poland. It's just another level of exclusivity, just the exclusivity that our project has in this context. Thank you, and at the end I'd like to touch upon the issue of future reintegration. Of course, maybe it's too early to say about it, but I'd like to make some benchmarks for the future and try to imagine how those gaps will be covered, those gaps that now appear emerge in the Ukrainian territory. I have mentioned already some challenges that are clear now concerning the reintegration of the occupied territories, but now judging by your previous experience of work with those challenging problematic connections that were broken during the war, do you see any scenarios or recipes how to recover this fabric of the Ukrainian society despite those deep scars that we have and that become thicker? I've been thinking about it since 2014, how we would get Donetsk, Remy and Lugansk back, and then it seemed to be something really complicated, but now, surprisingly, it seems more possible than when I was thinking about it five years ago, because now the whole country's face is experiencing this trauma, this pain of intrusion in the same way. We all shared that pain for our land, and just a few years ago we thought that Donbass, well, it's something, they have something horrible, but Ukraine is flowering, but now it's scary everywhere. And in terms of that, I do have a hope that it will be easier and less painful. I used to have this phantom pain for Donetsk, I always remembered about it, I dreamt about it, I thought that maybe I see something, and now I have two places like that, so it turns out that one can absorb a few of those phantom pains. And well, before I used to be like, well, when Donetsk is back, I'll be the first to come back, because like I'm living in Mariupol, it's so close, so I'll be the first there. And then it seemed so like a fantasy, and I was like, let's not be delusional. But now I know for sure that Donetsk, that Ukrainian army will return Donetsk to us, Donetsk, Mariupol. Now I'm like, where should I go first? So this is my problem now, because I have a home in Donetsk and in Mariupol. But of course we understand that the first persons there will be those military who will occupy them. But in general, yeah, I'm trying to escape the answer, but well, the most important is how we're going to cooperate with people, how we'll deal with them, and Kursan just showed us how much people there waited for Ukraine. And there are also many people like that waiting for Ukraine like that in Donetsk and Lugansk, and you'll see it, everything is going to be great and we will reintegrate everything. In fact, remembering year 2014, when we had different artists from different projects, cultural missions, I think that now there will be something similar to that. Because back then no one understood what Donbass is and what do you want to see, what is war, what do you want to know. And now no one needs the explanation, unfortunately. But if we speak about the territories under occupation for eight years, we all will have to rediscover, re-explore Donetsk, Lugansk, Crimea, we'll have to study everything from scratch because I was in Lugansk only when I was a kid, only once. And I don't even remember it, so it's a bit easier for me to some extent because I was kind of touching, we had those points of connection because we worked with people from under occupation. And now I'm just starting to prepare myself to how we will work on those territories, how we will explore them in terms of how I will maybe travel just like a regular person. Because now there are different issues with those red names, those accents of Russian-Ukrainian names, of towns, but it's hard now to say about the towns that are destroyed. For example, I don't know yet whether I have something home to come back to. I just know that my house has been robbed, but I don't know how it is now. So it will be complicated in any case and it requires some preparation as well because the end of the full-scale war will be like the opening of the start of the new war, but on a different front line. And now these territories under occupation for eight years, they're too close to Russia and working with them is essentially important because we cannot let any pro-Russian mood in. We should work with these territories for a long time in any format. I think there will be, the situation will be kind of limited there when it comes back and comes back. And I don't think the Ukrainianization should not be gentle there, but rather really harsh. And we should work with that, deal with that as well as for me. So these will be the important places because once we close our eyes and stop looking at it will be in trouble. Thank you. And just coming back to the question of putting that fabric with the scars all together, we should say that what Ukraine did to us already made some framework for us and now no one needs an explanation of what Ukraine or being an Ukrainian is. And also someone mentioned that like we're afraid of that military tourism and I thought only I am concerned about it, but then I saw some other project which is also present here at the exhibition in this palace with the concept very well developed, the concept of what that tourism, so-called tourism to the places of battle is because we saw like all foreign guests come now, come to Sibucha, European etc. But that was politically important, but I think it's important that we prevent repeating of the history of 2014 when people just artists got those grants, they came to the places of battle, they just watched something and then left without doing nothing. So now I think I like the idea of keeping that in mind of letting ourselves some time to think about it. Maybe that's where the grants should go for like the process of the analysis, the thinking, imagining of that, just an easy example, simple example. They stole the Potomkin's monument in Kursin, but I said that I'm only thankful for that because there was a lot of history behind that monument, there were different people there and it was stolen in parts and at the end the whole monument was stolen. But there is this thing, the best period for me was when there was no figure on this post, but only the post itself and every person went over to that post and made a picture of that. And for me that was the vivid example of democracy. And this is like preventing of making some other monuments there would be the motivation for me. So up to you what do you think can be put on that post? So maybe something Cossack like, I don't mind it but maybe it should be in some other place because there maybe that empty post and the stellar and the history of what happened there would be better there and would be some food for thought. So if we do everything reasonably and smart then this cultural fabric will be really organic. And I'm sorry for this word, but it will be modern. Today I have, like I find it resonating that now there is a lot of exhibitions because everyone wants to speak about Ukrainian culture through art and there are many exhibitions with Ukrainian women in blood, you know, and with flowers but that's not what we want to show, how we want to show Ukraine to the world. We want the modern culture and when talking about this fabric it's really, we should really avoid, you know, those cliches and stereotypes. We should just think through and we should take our time because the last point is that the public society has manifested itself really great and we're all representatives of the public sector here and if any bullshit keeps appearing we will not be silent. So we have to call it a day. Thank you all for your optimism and for being ready to speak about some problems and challenges so let us give us some time and not be in a hurry. Thank you. If anyone has a question we can give you the mic but if you are brief. Thank you very much for sharing your experience. It was very interesting to hear what you experienced but I had two such ideas in mind. It's not just for speakers but for everyone present. I think that not so many Ukrainians are here but many are watching and many of us are not from Ukraine. See it because Ukraine is still a very interesting topic for the news but it's really a pity that we cannot see and hear and follow what you are doing so immediately I had an idea of doing kind of a database of your projects or even like I would love to be a part of, let's say, a Facebook group of you and be able to discuss and exchange ideas, what we can do and share ideas for foreigners, how we can participate and help and support because I feel very privileged that I can participate in this meeting with you. Second thing I wanted to ask you and now I know it's impossible to answer it but my question was because there are so many humanitarian charity programs, projects that an outsider can get lost like how to help and whom to help and of course everyone wants to support the army but I guess there are many vulnerable groups, people or issues or places that there is nobody that likes really taking attention so me as a non-Ukrainian artist, for example, I give an example has an idea of organizing kind of a charity action together with my art project, let's say and then how to choose which organization, which group, which people to support I feel completely lost and if you can give some trademarks like how to choose how to find out, how to assess which group or organization is really worth support I think that would be very useful for many people like me and the ones that are watching now Thank you Yes, I will tell you how to do it because we also pose this question we're inside the process so it's easier for us we are directly connected and contacting the groups in need let's say if a brigade needs to warm up, we know what to do but this question was posed to me by artists who left Ukraine Olena, I made money, I made some money, where should I donate it to? for me, there are just two options here first is you choose a big Ukrainian organization like Fund Pobrynezhyev which has the authority reports on its finances for me, this was Serhii Plutua fund or you take contacts from people whom you trust and who directly tell you I know this person and he or she needs this and that so you just choose people whom you trust and you know personally I was fortunate enough that I was asked what do you need money for she knew the person who contacted me that I came from her son so I told her we need funds for the evacuation of local people so please do not donate money to the people who you do not know a few weeks ago I saved a text written for donating money and the very editing of the text was so dubious that you wouldn't trust it so when you take a look at the text you need to look into the details but no matter how well it's written it is most important that you know the person behind the text or it's a huge organization with a high level of authority Thank you for the proposal to create such a database and I think that Arsling will help you it will help us to send you a message on Instagram or other social media and you can also follow our names If you want to donate money you need to donate money you don't have the time, you don't have the time There are three things and while you consider to what smaller initiatives to donate you just donate there when you have this willingness and as for the smaller funds, smaller donations, smaller initiatives it's a brilliant idea to choose someone but it just depends on what is closer to yourself like do you want to support artists from the front-line areas do you want to support teenagers from marginalized groups from Mariupol what makes you feel more close and better so just like that there are so many small initiatives that make so many changes but small ones so you can select one and just take care of it for a long time Thank you for this You can also support animals so people who are dealing with animals or if you've got an organization supporting animals you can trust them for sure Thank you very much for this panel it was truly inspiring Until next time, thank you very much