 All right, I'm gonna go ahead and open up the waiting room Let me just check once more. Did anyone just join from our group? No They haven't but I will I'll keep Diligent I okay. Yeah, okay Hello everyone and welcome to the Brooklyn rails 517th new social environment talk Today marks actually our two-year anniversary of these conversations Which maybe spitting a lot has changed since two years ago I'm Carolyn the programs associate here at the rail and I have the privilege of being your emcee today for a conversation Featuring Anna Chisosterova, Luba Drozd, Adriana Farmiga, Susan Katz, Yulia Kostareva, Marina Slavova, Anton Szciacki, Vladimir Uss, Lika Volk, and Ksenia Sabolova as our host We're also thrilled to welcome poet Ostapkin here later to close the program We would like to thank Simon Dove from CEC Arts Link for helping make today's event possible and thanks to all of our Guests and our host as well for really doing so much organizing for this so quickly Here in New York we are on Lenape hooking the unseated land and waters of the Wapinger, Canarsie, Muncie and Lening Lenape people of the Delaware Nation and Shinnecock Indian Nation The Brooklyn rail stands in solidarity with the people of Ukraine The immense tragedy and atrocities unfolding feel quite impossible to put into language But we hope to provide here a space especially for Ukrainian voices and support And we'll be posting various resources in the chat throughout the conversation today Please feel free to add and or share those resources And now I'll introduce our host Ksenia M. Sabolova is a writer, art historian and curator based in New York City and specializes in queer art and culture She was the 2020-2021 Marika and Jan Bilsak Curatorial Fellow at the Guggenheim where she co-organized the Gillian Wearing Retrospective She is currently an Andrew W. Mellon Gender and LGBTQ History Fellow Center for Women's History at the New York Historical Society Museum and Library So thanks and I'll hand it over to you Ksenia Thank you Caroline and thank you to everybody at the Brooklyn Rail for making this possible and for the continued support I remember that we were actually doing a tech pre-check for one of these talks that I was also a host on On the day that the war started and I tuned in from my phone as I was walking back from a demonstration at the United Nations and Luba was there too And I thought right away that we should have a panel at the Brooklyn Rail dedicated to this and so this will be the first of many And I cannot believe that it has been three weeks and I am so incredibly grateful to all our speakers for being here today because I know that beyond the global impact of the war each of you is personally affected in different ways So I don't want to talk too much because I want to hear from our speakers and we have quite a few and my role as moderator is to make sure everybody gets to speak So I'm going to start by reading a one sentence bio for all of our speakers and then I'm going to give everyone a few minutes to introduce themselves, talk about their practices, art spaces, initiatives or whatever you feel that needs to be heard in this moment And then we'll we'll move into questions and we're going to end with a poetry reading by Ostapkin, which will be both in Ukrainian and English So Susan Katz has been working in the field of international cultural exchange for more than 20 years as CEC art links program director based until recently in St. Petersburg, Russia Yulia Kosturova is an artist and curator based in Kiev, Ukraine, co founder of Open Place, an initiative directed to extension of creative research and establishment of the links between art process and the different layers of modern society Anna Chistashordova is a curator and cultural worker originally from Minsk, Belarus, who currently lives and works in Berlin Marina Slavova is a gallery that's structured a gallery in Sofia, Bulgaria, responsible for the exhibition policy residency programs and international communication Anton Svetsky is a partner at Fragment Gallery in New York and Moscow. Vladimir is an artist curator and bicycle tour from Chisinau Moldova and found a member of the Overlick Association Luba Drost was born in Lviv, Ukraine, and lives in New York City. She is a site specific installation artist working with sound, 3D animation and sculpture Lika Folk is a Ukrainian born artist based in New York. In 2019 she organized cultural capital introspection international art program in Ushkadovo, Ukraine, and in 2021 opened the always fresh art space in a foreclosed pizzeria on the Lower East Side And finally Adriana Formiga is an interdisciplinary artist whose work addresses formations of identity by way of conceptual still life and assemblage. Formiga is a faculty member in sculpture and associate dean at the Cooper Union School of Art. So, welcome everyone. And Susan, would you mind starting us off. Thank you, Xenia. So I'm Susan Katz and I'm a program director at CC arts link and CC arts link is international cultural exchange organization that has been working in the countries of the former Soviet Union Central and Eastern Europe and a total of 37 countries doing cultural exchanges for more than 50 years. And for the last 20 years I've been based in St. Petersburg running our cultural programs in Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union. And two weeks ago my family and I decided that it wasn't safe to stay in Russia and we, we left. And now as an organization we are trying to refocus our work and to address the horrific things that have happened and to provide support to artists communities in the regions that we work and specifically directing our efforts towards Ukrainian artists and arts as well as artists and cultural workers at risk from Russia and Belarus. And so now the question that we have is how do we do this and we've been working with a network of organizations in 10 countries of the former Soviet Union and now also in Bulgaria, and several people from this network are participating in the meeting today. And we have always the focus of this network has been in exchanging information between organizations that are committed to social practice art. And we always had a lot of interregional exchanges. And so now we're trying to continue to do that but really focusing on providing support to artists from Ukraine and Belarus through these residencies and having providing opportunities for them to be in residence in the countries in the region. While we're trying to focus a lot of our programs on Ukraine, and providing opportunities for residencies and other forms of support. I think that for us, another key element of our work has always been in facilitating a dialogue between artists and artists communities around the world. And, you know, we definitely feel that today that's more critical than ever. And as someone who's lived in Russia for a long time and, you know, support the people there I know that the people in my community are very much against the war and don't know how to express it. And I think it's really critical that our organization continues to support them as well so we're trying to find ways to keep the programs that we were doing in Russia, going and having an ongoing dialogue between Russian artists and American artists and that's something that will try to do as long as it's saved to do it. So, I guess I just want to say that, you know, like everyone we're horrified but what's happening and really trying to find ways to support artists at risk from the region. Thank you. Thank you Susan. Yulia, can we move on to you? Yes, open place initiative of artists with the primary objectives to facilitate discussion, exchange of opinion and ideas between artists and curators and various social groups from across Ukraine and other countries. Now, because of the Russian war, our members are in the different cities and countries. The people who stay in Ukraine from our team mostly provide humanitarian and social activity. And me being in Warsaw support initiatives who provide emergency residency for artists as well as to help artists with the logistics and necessary that they might need for their work here. Thank you Yulia. Anna. Hello to everyone. It's like for until 2020, I was running the probably main independent cultural private institution in Belarus, which was called Oog Gallery of Contemporary Art. Due to the political regime, my gallery was closed and I was pressed to move out from country. And now I'm talking with you from Berlin, where I have temporary stay at least for one year and since last year me and my partner from the gallery, we established initiative which is called Ambassador Kultury, Embassy of Culture, which trying to provide not only resources for cultural workers in need from Belarus, because unfortunately after president elections we had in 2020, almost all independent cultural infrastructure and community were destroyed. And people were pressed also to leave country, but for last three weeks, with a curatorial group of independent creators we're also working on the creation of online platform for supports Ukraine. It will be an international platform and later now we are testing this platform and I think that later I can provide you information and kindly invite you to join our initiative as well. We would love that. Thank you. Thank you, Anna. Anton. Hi everybody. I'm Anton I'm the partner at Fragment Gallery which recently opened in New York location and was founded in Moscow. And unfortunately has to close in Moscow. And because of Russia invading Ukraine. I mean, it's very hard to speak on what we can do now I'm sure everybody's feeling really powerless and us included and all we've been doing in the past several weeks is just collecting money and sending money directly to artists in Ukraine and trying to help them survive. And it feels like we're going to keep doing that for a while yet. But long term, the mission of the gallery has always been to support Eastern and Central European artists and facilitate access to Western discourse and Western institutions for them. And so we have an international program we've always worked with Ukrainian and Belarusian Russian, former Soviet block artists from, you know, Croatia and other countries. So we're going to continue doing that we're going to refocus on Ukraine and I've made it sort of my personal mission to start a conversation with other galleries in New York. Not a members to become more familiar with Ukrainian Eastern European artists and to build deeper connections and to show them and to give them more visibility and secure their futures. And I feel like this is going to be a very long term project and initiative that I hope will just develop into a common practice among the American community because I feel like the region here has been largely underrepresented for a very long time. And so the understanding that Americans have of the region is very lacking. That's also part of the problem. A lot of people who immigrated to the US from former Soviet countries and you know they would say where they are from when asked. Nine out of 10 people wouldn't know where Latvia is or where Ukraine is or where Lithuania is so these people were just adopt the sort of quasi Russian identity and that's a problem. And to address that, we need to develop a much more comprehensive understanding of Eastern Europe to be able to differentiate these identities. Thank you. Thank you. Marina, do we have Marina? Yes, I'm here. Hello to everybody. My name is Marina. I am a Gallivist at Struktura Gallery in Sofia, Bulgaria. Struktura functions as an independent space in Sofia trying to bot represent Bulgarian artists internationally, but our main focus is basically to establish and to help build sustainable international connections with artists and curators worldwide. And as part of the Art Prospect Network, we are trying to focus even more on Central and Eastern Europe as part of this part of the world. And so we are trying to take part in this difficult conversation to see how we can support Ukrainian artists and the artistic community and to see how we could be helpful in these horrible times. Thank you, Marina. Do we have Vladimir? Hello, everyone. My name is Vladimir. I work in an orderly association in Kishina, Republic of Moldova. One of the questions that we raise is how to use the question of self-organizing of the independent cultural community here, but also how to provide more resilience to our community to different types of crisis among the economic, ecological and more recently humanitarian crisis. After the fall of Soviet Union, we've been witnessing many of our citizens forced to leave abroad or in search of work, which consequently produced the other social problems in Moldova. Also during pandemics, it was very obvious that the cultural community is basically a very precarious group of people who struggle to survive. And now we have the war in our neighborhood, in Ukraine, with whom we share the border and we witness other type of provocations. I mean the enormous flux of refugees and one of the provocations today is how to not to lose the members of our own community as well, who also are thinking maybe to leave from here. So one of the questions is what do we learn from all these crises and how to get more resilient in front of them in future. And when it comes to refugee crisis, it's a very difficult question because you cannot how to, which criteria to apply because everyone is in need. Basically one of the, not solution, but one of the topics which we are thinking lately is the need for sustainable alternative culture infrastructure that could be physical, be virtual, that could support our work. In the 1990s we were witnessing a lot of public spaces being privatized and going into private hands and disappearing from our use. Then with the crisis, like pandemics or refugee crisis, we just realized that there is no enough public infrastructure to accommodate these fluxes of people. There is no centers to take care of the people. So a lot of work is done by volunteers, by ordinary citizens, taking them to their homes. And there is no even public bus companies to take the refugees from border to Kishinev and further to Romania. So you will see all these kind of situations and this is like it has to deal with also the questions which we raise in our community with a question of resilience in general. Thank you, Vladimir. And now we'll move on to our artists, Lyuba. Hi, I'm Lyuba Drozd. Originally I was born in Ukraine, in Lviv, in the west of Ukraine. I'm an artist, besides specific installation artists. The past, I mean, this situation is not new, right? It's been going on for decades, the imperial oppression of Ukraine by Russia. I feel like a lot of Ukrainian artists have been struggling with that for a while. Right before the bombing started in December, my childhood friend was arrested when Russia abused Interpol, and he was detained in Italy and was fighting extradition to Russia. So that set off the continuing nightmare that doesn't seem to end. We've been trying to get him out, he's finally out. And then I started fighting disinformation that's been popping up everywhere, online, Twitter, social media, articles. It seems that Russian disinformation permeated so many spaces. My biggest fear is that a lot of it permeated leftist spaces. I'm very concerned about that. That's why I've been collecting articles and Twitter accounts to follow of Ukrainian journalists, writers, thinkers, links to topics about Ukraine. The Wikipedia on the parliament, Ukrainian parliament, drada composition, because there was the disinformation about Ukrainian neo-Nazis in parliament, not true. I feel like just getting basic information out to people so they're educated on the subject and not don't succumb to the propaganda that is so intense that sometimes even I get whiplash from it. And a few weeks, five days before the bombing started, I called my dad in Ukraine, and I told him that he needs to get out immediately, that something is going to be, that I think something terrible is about to happen. A week after the bombings, I got him out and my brother out of Ukraine, so he's now in Poland. I've been in contact with my former classmates, raising money. One of them is a volunteer in Kiev, who is driving around to block posts around Kiev, they're protecting the city and delivering food, medicine, coffee, and food tools. So I raised $4,000 and they could get a surveillance drone, a little video drone, to see the enemy targets, night vision things, equipment, thermal underwear, like high-end and all the necessary things. I also have sent packages of protective tactical gear to my other classmates who is on the outside of Kiev, with a group of people who are also fighting the Russian army, researching bulletproof vests. This is uncomfortable. There are so many directions which I want to direct my help to, but it's sometimes at a loss of what to do. Today I woke up at 3 a.m., just so I could catch up with spreading information and keeping contact and figuring out where my refugee family will go and et cetera, et cetera. It's been an overwhelming experience. Together with a group of Ukrainian artists in New York, we have been meeting and figuring out ways to inform. The main thing is informing people and getting the information out about Ukraine. Thank you, Lyuba. And we'd love to hear more about that as well. Lika, maybe we can move on to you. Yes, hi. I'm Lika Volk. I used to be Lika Volkova until some time ago. I grew up in Odessa and also I lived in Moscow as a teenager for about five years. I have a lot of sort of background in both countries in a way, and I don't want to talk about my practice right now with projects. And what I'm mostly struggling with is how much in denial Russian citizens and Russian community, art community including, are about what brought this war, what is actually going on. I'm largely admitting that it's Putin's war, but not Russia's war, which is not accurate at all. Not taking this past three weeks was the first time in my life that I have heard any Russian citizen I know per se saying that maybe we are responsible for what's happening, because before it was never admitted it was always like there's Putin's war, and we have nothing to do with Putin, but we could have something to do with Tolstoy. And how does this narrative exactly works, and how incredibly painful it is to witness, because until every Russian citizen admits that he's responsible for what's going on, there's going to be no change. The stopping war depends directly on each of us and Russian citizens including. So, there are a lot of sort of, I can't really even like speak about art community right now because I don't see a difference between average Ukrainian, other Ukrainian citizens or my friends, artists. There are a lot of things that could be suggested, but I think share like sort of educating as Lyuba said, public on what preceded this war, what Russian culture actually is, how imperial the Russian mind may be, what's the fact that Russia was a slave empire and still has a lot of traces of that, which is not known to public widely because we associate slavery with either race or colonialism, but the fact that Russia was a slave empire of its own people was not necessarily known fact. So there are some like, and then how art world participates in the kind of like current for the past eight years, despite the fact that Russia launched this war in Ukraine, the art community participated in so many Russian programs worked with so many Alikars, it's just like, I don't know where to start, literally, like, so this discussion could be helpful in many ways. Thank you, Lika, and I have, I have a lot to add to that actually but I want to let Adriana speak first. Thank you, senior. Good afternoon, Slava Ukraine. I'm a first generation Ukrainian, and I feel like my entire life has been culturally conditioned to absorb this moment and yet the shock waves of it are making it very difficult to function. As an artist, I have been involved in several efforts of organizing. I agree with, I agree with the, the two previous points that were made about education. I would like to speak to that maybe a little bit later in our Q&A. I have much to say about that. So yeah, so we're involved in a few efforts, there's a, there's a large artsy auction that I'm helping organize that is about to happen. There are other auctions that are happening, there's lots of mobilization, but I think there is a shortcoming and a challenge in the space of education and at the same time managing that awareness with the daily function of waking up, checking in on family in Ukraine, I still have family in Ukraine. Are they alive? Do they have food? They've been running out of food as of two weeks ago. My family, not that this is a luxury, but some of my family members do not have the opportunity or the luxury to actually leave. In the country there is complications with family trauma and generational trauma that relates to those of us who did leave and found ourselves here in the states. So there, there's like, you know, there's a, there's a series, there's a constellation of experiences that I have been undergoing in the last three weeks. And you know, it's difficult, it's difficult to not have a feeling of hopelessness being so remote, but doing what I can with whom I can whenever I can and trying to just make it through the day. So I will, I will end it there for now. Thank you Joanna and thank you to everyone for sharing your stories and I'd love to hear more about all the initiatives and the ways that everyone who's participating today can help and become involved. Lika, I actually maybe want to start by by picking up on what you were saying, you know, I need to acknowledge right away that I am a Russian citizen. My mother and I left Russia when I was eight, exactly because it was very shitty. And we are an ethnic minority within Russia with Tatar. And I have been writing articles anti Putin over the years, you know, I'm proud and out I'm proud lesbian. And pointing out how the violence that Putin is enacting on its own people, right. And what I have found over the past three weeks to be the case is that a lot of people think that Russia is a democracy. And the news is censored to the point of, you know, if you haven't lived there and sort of you can compare. It's just unreal. And so how, you know, I think, and I actually I had a, I have an opinion piece coming out about this but I had an instance where I, an article on this was going to come out by me with a journal that I regularly contributed to, and then it was pulled. Because they felt that my voice in this case was inappropriate as a Russian. And so it's, you know, I'm curious. So what do you think about how do we, how do we turn. How do we wake up the Russian populate I think that for sure everyone outside of Russia needs to be actively outspoken and actively participating in anti war and anti Putin initiatives. But how do people within Russia would. A lot of them like my grandma turns on the news. She has no idea that a war is happening right. Do we make sure that those people have access to what is actually happening how do we turn. And Susan maybe you can speak that as well, how do you turn the Russian population against Putin, because I think that that is what needs to happen you know and there has been a mass accident as there was just a new Times article about this today of Russians and anti Putin Russians leaving Russia right. All the people who actually know what's happening are leaving Russia than what stays in Russia are the people that have no clue, you know, and I by no means want to equate Ukrainian is running from bullets with Russians running from their government but I do think that this is a discussion that needs to be had and also you know films are being pulled from film festivals. Yes if there's they have state funding sure but there is a cultural boycott beyond state funding and it just feels to me like that's basically doing Putin's job for him. He's already silencing Russian dissidents. So now the rest of the world is going to silence Russian dissidents as well. Okay, if I respond or you want to because and please cut me if I take too much time, because it's a very, I think it's also maybe a generational gap because I mostly know. I know how it's like, of course, like we can talk about the fact that majority of American intellectuals don't know that Soviet Union was also an oppressed state basically a form of slavery. And also I would I witness when I was a teenager in Moscow is how easy it was for the same people in like Russian art community. I would like to ask the artists intellectuals to so fast switch from kind of democratic direction to literally what I can call Russian Nazism. Someone whose name is I'm sure you familiar Alexander Dugin, who is a Putin ideologist who used to openly go around and recruit artists and Russian intellectuals. I'm an ideologist like for a strike of Russian domination of Russian world. And whenever I hear that it's Putin's war. I disagree because what I read now, still is like I read an article by Katya doggies, for example, saying I have nothing to do with it. It's Putin's war, which is not necessarily like I think it. The change in Russia has to start with people whose voices are important, declaring the fact that they did participate in this ideological shift in this like growing sentiment against neighboring countries. And it has to be admitted as a part of Russian culture this war to me is a part of Russian culture. It's the, you can say that so many people are afraid to speak out but fear in itself is also a part of Russian culture, and it has to be first I think first and foremost. And then we can think how to affect people who are in watching like brainwashed by TV because TV is a tool, and then there are a lot of ways I believe that technology can help I don't know many other things can help but I think about minority of Russian population that are strongly anti war, and I think I believe it's like about 10% that are ready to be welcome. They cannot organize because they cannot they don't feel protected and they don't feel together so in 10 million people is a lot of people. And it's a lot of people coming out on the streets and we're seeing only like 10s of 1000s of people sometimes. And those who do come out are brave, and I want to praise them by all means but I think like for me it's problematic when I hear that this is Putin's war and once again, you are a part of the younger generation, perhaps there are more people whom I don't know who are strongly opposed to this war from the younger generations of Russians but everyone I, whose voices, like sort of have weight like Katya and so many other Russian intellectuals who distance themselves from what's going on. I think that's, that's the problem to me. I don't know. Yeah, no, and I agree with you. And I, you know, when when the war started, there was a there was a performance artist who burned her passport Russian passport in front of a consulate and sold it as an NFT and while I admired the fundraising effort I was very critical of the gesture because, you know, that way you're just saying oh I'm not Russian so this is not my war. And for me I want to acknowledge that I'm Russian and this war is being pursued in my name. And then what can I do, right. And, Susan, I, since you were in Russia. What are the ways that you can enact resistance without it just being completely censored right away. And especially in terms of communities that are already vulnerable, you know, like the queer community in Russia like a lot of my friends in Russia, they, they can go out on the street to protest I mean, a lot of them are now but when for example when the demonstrations were happening right. I, I noticed that people didn't want to talk about it they disappeared from social media, and I realized that they're already so vulnerable to go out on the street and protest they you know will be thrown into jail, and then whether it's queer or trans, it's just, you know, it's very dangerous. I wish I had a good answer for what you're talking about and Leica I wanted to say that I really appreciated your words because I think they really need to be heard by the Russian community and for people to really understand what this problem has such a long history and that it's so much more complicated than saying that, you know, it is Putin's war and I think I've been really saddened, looking on social media and seeing the discussions between Ukrainians and Russians who really both are against the Russia who, I think, share have you know shared history and collaborated for so many years but they can't discuss these issues anymore. And it's become very nasty and what you said in such a I think an eloquent way is something that Russians really need to hear and really need to acknowledge and accept and I think you're completely right that people need to accept their history for what has happened in Ukraine and that this isn't something that just Putin did. And I think probably everybody here knows how helpless I think so many people feel in Russia about affecting change, I mean, the number of people that I know who don't vote who don't go to demonstrations is huge even though they're against the system. And, you know, it's both out of fear and out of feeling that they can't affect change. And I think, you know, it isn't it's right now I'm when I talk to friends who are still in Russia, you know, most people I know want to leave, but don't have the opportunity. And right now they keep saying, we don't feel like it's our country anymore, and they're afraid even to go outside because they see these nationalistic flags they see the Z they feel the country has changed so quickly. And I don't know how we can sort of, I mean we need to empower these people to be able to feel that they can affect change and to talk about it and I truly don't know what the answer is how do you do this. I guess it's starting with the small communities that we know, share these feelings and having them talk with each other but also talking to people like you, Leica and people in Ukraine and trying to have a conversation about the situation in a non aggressive way and I realized that during the war this may not be possible. But I think it's something that really has to be done. Yeah, and remaining in dialogue I think it's so important which is why I'm so grateful to everybody on this panel for wanting to be on the panel for making the time for being together. And Adriana, I know that that you wanted to make a point about education. So I think maybe this is a nice a good time. I mean, I think the answer or what one of the answers to the questions that you posed and that we've just discussed about what can be done now is my answer would maybe be three pronged which is the first would be for not just the Russian country but the global community the world to educate itself now is the best time and the phenomenon of justification has had a jump start on the world's attention span by at least a century. So for people to educate themselves about the way Ukraine, Ukrainian culture and the Ukrainian language are not Russian, and we are not the same people is a start. Our history precedes that of Russia's by a long stretch and our language alone with its variabilities of grammar and alphabet is something like 38 to 40% different. That is significant. So as an example you can look at Spanish and Italian, if you want to get like a clearer understanding of the differences. You should also know that Ukrainians and their language have been referred to as subhuman as primitive. And we have literally been been characterized as unevolved, and this has been going on for a very long time. And yet for the majority of recent history Russia has had no problem in trying to assimilate Ukrainians and appropriate our cultural heritage so I think there is plenty of an opportunity for the world now to start educating itself. I believe that is step one. And just to pivot back to Ukrainians. And, you know, if we're talking about solidarity with Ukrainians, what can be done. Well, number two would be to give, give us a voice give us a platform. I'm grateful for this opportunity I agree we need to have dialogue. If there are artists, give us shows give us gallery shows institutional shows we are not a monolith we work in very different ways my work is very different than you buzz as an example. We are able to represent Ukraine being Ukrainian and Ukrainian this in some rich vibrant and nuanced ways and I think, you know, the third and we can speak about this and I know there are links being put up in the chat about how people can help but I don't think what people realize is that Ukraine has been used as a human shield as a human shield of Russian imperialism for a long time. So this is not new. But in in this year with this war. The ramifications of what is happening now on global energy and food systems will be felt exponentially the longer this plays out so we can talk about resources later but I believe that there's a multi pronged approach the first being the distinction and educating oneself, just at the very, at the very base level the distinction between Ukrainian and Russian. So that's, that's my two cents on it. And, you know, I think a few people have said that, you know, this is not new, not only has this been going on for eight years but also this is not the first war. And this is not the first time Russian troops have been in the, you know, sovereign territory and, or American troops, and there is, I think, in terms of cultural boycotts, I think there, there is also an interesting parallel and dichotomy between, for example, the way that Israeli organizations were boycotted, and people were having a lot of trouble getting behind that, and the way that now there, there is this, you know, there just is this really growing tension. And I wonder, I wonder if this is something that is just felt here in the West, or if is this attention that you are feeling in Eastern Europe, and maybe Julia and Anna, you can speak to that. Like are people remaining in dialogue, what are. Yeah, I was not going to speak about this because I think I can be very emotional, but I really support boycott and we as an organization, make it public and I believe that each cultural institution should be clear about own political position and declare it's publicly. This is the one thing which we didn't do like clearly before. And now we have the situation. You asked Xenia why and that I also want to ask what make people so vulnerable in Russia now, because it was like 22 years of putting under the power. And people choose to be unpolitical and not to express and inactive, just perceive what he did, and you are right that it is not the first time in Ukraine. Before it was Georgia, before it was like the same Afghanistan, started in Moldova, then Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, so it's like everything around and in the intellectuals choose not to be active. And I would like to add about that. This is a Putin war. No, this is not the Putin war, because until people feel Putin and recognize him as an illegitimate president, this is Putin represent Russia. This is a Russian people who actually allow him to do this, being inactive and so on. So that's why I support by court and we also in Ukraine we have this practice. And yeah, and one more that the rights doesn't given the rights is taken. Yes, so you if you want to have rights you need to fight for that. Then in Ukraine we have the like long practice of by quoting our institution as well. And this bring changes. And why people in Russia does didn't react when there was violation of different NGOs, when the memorial was like kick out and cultural institution like Polish Institute was kicked out from Russia. Why people didn't they feel that this is not the like site. And then they became well vulnerable yes. So sorry. I need to apologize at all. And I have to say I by no means I'm trying to defend Russia. I'm so grateful to my mother for realizing how fucked up the situation there was and forgetting us out long time ago. All I'm saying is that having been in Russia and having experienced there. And perhaps a little more familiar with the quieter ways that resistance can take place and just because it's not in the view of the West and on social media doesn't mean that there is no resistance. And, you know, I can't access my own website in Russia because every page has the word lesbian on it. And so, you know, it's like that just the amount of censorship it's really. So I guess my question back to you is how how how can individuals, you know how can every Russian individual resist. If you put a post on social media is just removed. I'm not saying that they shouldn't I think that every, I mean they can't arrest everyone. And actually this woman on the on the on TV running, running onto the set with the with the sign of they are lying to you, you know when I first saw that I thought, how do you montage this this this can this can be real. There's no way this could have happened in Russia. And when I realized that it had that gave me a sense of hope. Because I do think that finally people are, you know, braving 15 years in jail, like if you refer to to the war in Ukraine as an invasion war conflict, anything along those lines. It's a 15 year prison sentence. And people are being arrested for carrying blank signs with signs that there was a person carrying blank sign, nothing on it, still arrested for protesting. Yeah, you just one remark the Ukrainian people and the people who are in Ukraine just kill because being Ukrainian and live in this country, you know, let's compare the same. Oh, I don't need to compare at all. No. Susan, I think you were going to say something. No. Lika. It's like, sort of, if we're in this territory of culture and art, right, then it's one maybe there could be something said, otherwise, I don't think it's the Ukrainians right now who can necessarily like answer to the question how Russians can brave up and what does it entail to risk. But I don't think historically, artists means someone who doesn't risk their lives. I think we know so many examples of artists going to war, dying young, fighting in wars. For ideological reasons, sometimes life in itself, or death, I would say is not even death as as the worst case scenario is not the worst outcome that we can imagine. Maybe starting from reflection on fear itself, what does it make Russian people to be so afraid of, I don't know, taking action. Right. I think what makes them afraid is that they're not sure that they're supported by each other. Like at least this is how it feels for Ukrainians. Like why war, why are we like, I see people in my country and myself, like sort of, I went to learn how to shoot guns, it's not something to brag about, but it's like you feel the physicality of, of, of, of existence, like, what, what, what makes it so like what makes it possible for Ukrainians to be proactive is the fact that they feel each other support. Like, if you feel that if you go on the street, and with you there will be million of people who will come fight for you, then your fear just dissolves. It's not about, it's no longer about sort of astronaut in the gear that like comes with, with this, you know, way to grab you, you feel like you believe in things that are shared among your peers and they will stand up for you. So, for some reason, there's something and this is like, I think this is the problem that somehow historically Russia evolved as this like almost like of course it's a propaganda of course there are ways to manipulate like sort of public sentiment but people evolved century after century with the psyche of sort of being okay delegating their sense of agency to someone else. That's, that's how like kind of the transition of slaves like kind of a slave empire from being oppressed physically than being oppressed physically than just accepting the fact that you're going to be oppressed no matter what like this has to be resisted because nothing guarantees that like things don't change. And I don't know how to start this in Russia like this is not sort of our, our place to to suggest, but Yeah, can go on. It's like, it can't go on like this like something it's just if Russians think that it's impossible for them, for example to protest physically on the streets. There are other ways there is like ways to I don't know to block internet there are like plenty of Russian intelligent hackers that could organize some kind of form of stranger resistance I don't know but it's a matter of support like there's consensus like there's I think that I don't know what it is, honestly, but fear in itself. No problem. I think that. I think that what you're saying about just the acceptance that things aren't going to change is just spot on and I think that what brings the Ukrainians together is also you know they elected their president, whereas in Russia there isn't acceptance of you know it voting doesn't matter because it's not, it's not a real vote. And I agree with Adriana that we should recenter the conversation around Ukraine and just, you know, and I know we have been talking about Russia and I'm grateful for all of you to all of you for having this awkward conversation with me and I, because I do strongly believe that that the way to end this is to get Putin out. And I think that Russians play a critical role in getting Putin out, because he can't arrest everyone. So, but I apologize for for centering it around Russia for a little too long. You can I say something. Yeah, like, I also was the centering felt extremely discombobulating to me right now. I've seen this kind of centering a lot in conversations about Ukraine, it keeps happening, it keeps happening, it keeps happening, and it feels like yet another form of appropriation it's an appropriation of pain. Right. Ukrainians are being bombed, and their pain is appropriated to to focus on Russian dissidents right now this conversation should happen. But people like Yulia said, there's like a bomb was dropped on a theater that said children yesterday and we should we should should focus on on on supporting people there in conversations in solidarity with Ukraine right now. Thank you. Vladimir and Marina and Anton and Anna, I feel like I just wanted to add because like me now is a totally strange situation because the war conflict started from the land of Belarus. In fact, and we have to say also that the territory of Belarus so so now somehow occupied and about the way of thinking of. I really can't say that Russians Belarusians whatever former Soviet people. It's also the point, the critical point for this war because in some countries like Ukraine or Georgia. It was already process of last 30 years of self reflection on the Soviet strategy, which was like for 70 years unfortunately in Belarus and I think in Russia. There is not enough self reflections and thinking about past, because what we still have for last in my country already 27 years and more than 20 years in Russia. This is also things we have responsibility for. And I think that not only people in my country and in Russia but also people all over the world have to also reflect on past. And now I'm based in Berlin and they know how it works. They reflection on past and the previous. I don't know why lands, which was happening in history. And this process of education which you somehow mentioned twice today. It's very important for everyone because I think that many countries also around the world now in one step to like continue these processes and very different points around the world. So it's just assuredly because honestly last three weeks I'm already speechless and I don't know why I do something but sometimes from time to time I'm seeing what the reason for this and how I can really help my friends, colleagues and people in Ukraine. Thank you. Thank you. Landimer, Anton, Marina, do you have anything to add. I can try. I am. I think our role if we speak of ourselves is to educate in that through the means that we have and art and culture can be a powerful tool for that. And here I support this idea that it's not only Putin's war that will contribute to it to a certain degree. We have a very interesting initiative in Moldova called Spalateria Theater, and one of their play was about Jewish Holocaust in Kishinev, and not in Kishinev and Transnistrian region during the Second World War, and the participation of Moldovan population in the Holocaust itself. And this kind of issue they are totally out of history books. No one would learn about like us as a nation or country taking part in something like that. So these are absolutely unknown things which cultural actors, artists can really make visible. So in that sense I second the idea of education but maybe not only in terms of making the difference but rather adopting a critical distance towards events and having the distance which allows us to analyze those events exactly make a difference from the TV as a tool. So here, what can I say, I think the discussion is about tool, tool somehow went into, could develop on two levels, one level we try to speak now about our own citizens or this or that country. What can we do or what we are not able to do but then what about the politicians who failed. And this is I think another issue we need to raise. In our case we already tried to for many years develop collaboration with artists from Transnistrian region, which there was a civil war but backed by Russian army in 1992, which created a separatist region in Moldova. And all these years we don't see almost any progress from politicians. So we can try to do it individually as artists and citizens create contacts with each other to overcome those events. But there is no, no will on political side that is a big question. So if you look on a larger scale what happened now in Ukraine or in Moldova happened. It's a, it's a question like why political elites failed to prevent this humanitarian catastrophe. Like, I mean, especially if we speak of this peripheral regions in the empires where different kind of empires disputed their territories, the Ottoman Russian Empire and so on. And this we see basically our territory as a kind of plus down for experimenting these relations, and this is how I also feel in this situation that someone actually experiments in Ukraine in Moldova, and it's not only Putin of course it's not but it's neither on the citizens of Russia or who are provoking this. So let's let's think in that direction. The last news is that, for example, American Embassy wants to have an embassy in very, very center of tissue now we have a former stadium. It's a republican stadium which was demolished some 15 years ago, because it didn't correspond to the standards. In the meantime the government couldn't build anything better instead so it's like a field the wild field full of trees, which could be a nice park. I mean, it's not a bad idea to have maybe a park in the city. But then we have this very insisting proposal to have a Russian and Russian American Embassy, the very middle of the city which creates another fortress from urban perspective. So if you look on this regional events when embassies are targeted by the military, this raises many other issues like why to have a, you know, an embassy in the very center where people live. It's like a big question for me. Thank you. Marina. Do you have anything to add? You're muted. Nicole, you're muted. Yes, apologies, Marina, you should be able to turn on the mic now. Now, thank you. Sorry, I was just unable to admit myself. I find it, to be honest, I find it very complicated to say anything, because the topic is so complex, I can, I can say a lot from the Bulgarian perspective. As you know, probably Bulgaria has a very complicated relationship with Russia. So speaking of education and speaking about knowing your own history, I think we are now facing the exact same issue that we, especially my generation, but even more the older generations need to face and critically think about our own history and reflect on it. And I just find it very complicated to speak right now because I don't want to shift the focus from your brain to Bulgaria. Although speaking from my perspective and what's been going on in Bulgaria, I might do it and I feel it's inappropriate. So I completely agree with almost everything that Vladimir said, because we are in a very similar situation. I can give you a lot of examples on what's going on here and we have massive issue with misinformation. We have a huge part of the society here is very pro Russian, unfortunately, because the Russian propaganda in Bulgaria has been very, very strong for a lot of, for many years. We see the Russian army, especially the army as some kind of creature that has freed us from the Ottoman Empire and from the Nazi regime. We have a huge monument in the middle of our capital, Sofia, of the Russian army. That's one of the tallest monuments we have in our country, a monument of the Russian army with the gun in his hands. What I really like about our new Prime Minister and our new cabinet is that they decided due to the circumstances now to at the end remove this monument from the city center as a gesture towards Russia as a gesture towards supporting Ukraine. Of course, the Russian Embassy came out with a lot of misinformation, saying that it's not correct what we are doing that we are untanked for for everything that they did for our culture and history. I really, I feel so bad for shifting the topic right now. Yeah, but basically what happened here on the third of March, Bulgaria had its national holiday, our freedom day, so to say, and a lot of cultural institutions, museums, galleries and so on. That's this national holiday. And we're open to visitors in order to show, not support to Ukraine, but boycott towards Russia, so to say, because we own our freedom day to Russia, and we kind of even neglected our own freedom day, because of the current situation. That's, I don't know even. Yeah. I don't mean to educate nobody right now on our two political historical background in Bulgaria, but just wanted to add to the point of how important education is, and that's a topic that's really relevant in Bulgaria as well right now. Yeah, I, I'll just interject for a brief moment. I think that is one area that we can maybe all find common ground in, and that that is education and the education around what has happened not just in the last 25 years, but the last 100 years. This is this is a very complex and complicated history that has been really just super fucked up to say the least right so I think that's a starting point, and I think to, to, to Marina to your to your last point for people to just gain an awareness of what these nations and what their cultures actually are. I can't, I think that is that is just a starting point and it may sound super basic, but we have to start somewhere. I can't tell you for how many years. My soul existence on Twitter has been yelling at major media corporations that it is not the Ukraine. You know, let's let's just start there and if we can, if we can get to that point in our in our collective dialogue I feel like we can accomplish much more. Thank you. May I ask something else that because we're the conversation is so complex as I said and so multi layered that we are kind of, I am getting a little bit lost in it. And so, I think that Lika said that basically the point is to, to discuss how we can help people and help not only their to see communities because that's a humanitarian crisis and yes, as an cultural institutions we can help in this process of education, but my other question is how we as people and as organizations, how we can help people, not only artists, not only curators, not only human beings being part of our network, besides spreading information and educating how we can actually proactively help. That's that's my biggest question right now. Thank you. Yeah, I wanted to add to Adriana's point about education, like the Ukraine. It's Ukraine right, but there's also the history of appropriation of artists and writers that are still labeled as Russian in Wikipedia. So, Bulgakov who was born in Kiev, it says he's Russian. Google, who wrote extensively about Ukraine, marked as Russian Wikipedia is full of this stuff. So there's a, I don't know how else to say besides decolonizing these Wikipedia trees, but maybe there should be another word for it but for let's Ahmatova as Lika actually told me about that. So a lot of people think my Levit is exclusively a Russian painter and the list goes on. So, letting people know, making museums acknowledge this, libraries, museums, Wikipedia is just slowly getting back the cultural icons that were appropriated and lost. Somebody mentioned Paul Selan. So, these are big gestures that we can do and that could also start talking about and educate people about like how wide the cultural appropriation was. Thank you, Luba. Did anyone want to? Yeah, may I? Yeah, of course. I'm sorry if the conversation comes back to Russia, but I feel like the urgency of the situations were in it and like Russia is there. So, I believe strongly that for a Russian community and I'm not sort of insisting it's just my belief that being afraid of boycott is counterproductive. I think the fastest, the soonest Russian community embraces full on boycott, economic first of all, and largely also boycott of cultural Russian institutions. For this very moment of urgency, the soonest we can shift the situation for Russians also, for those who believe in your country being able to change. So, I wouldn't confuse what we feel is a necessary measure which is by coating so many compromised Russian initiatives. I certainly definitely wouldn't fear that I would embrace it and only perhaps through this like very definitive action, something can change. Because if you acknowledge things, then some then the new things can start like losing now it's it's viewed by Russians as like if you openly state that many artists that were appropriated by Russian Empire as Russian actually are in a lot of times Ukrainians or Georgians or Belarusians or something else. Russia doesn't lose anything. It creates a space for like future development. It's not like something to be feared and thought over. Like I don't believe that like if I would be Russian I definitely wouldn't, I don't know, I wouldn't have that as a concern, but because I've seen over this eight years so many fights of like Russian artists over like origin of this artist or that artist or like how even Marat Gelman who is notoriously like in a position when he's so that MoMA wrote like Malevich's Russian artist of Ukrainian origin, which is like also not entirely true. He because Malevich identified himself as a Ukrainian artist. He immediately like posted Oh now like look cultural sanctions started instead of acknowledging the truth. There is a backlash. I think this the fastest this period and most like fearless the approaches to this to embrace the boycott I think it's it's it could be good. Could be helpful. And in solidarity with all these countries was all Eastern Europe that was that undergone this period. I think that's something we can I don't know. I agree with you and I think we are running out of time but but I would love to continue this conversation. And and also boycotting oil and gas would be good. Next should we open it for questions from the audience. I want to thank everyone again. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being in dialogue. Thank you for talking through awkward uncomfortable painful topics and this is the first of many. Thank you Cassania. Um, I think just before doing like a very we only have a couple questions maybe if we want to just since there's so many I guess today if anybody wanted to make a final remark or ask a question on yourselves just to make a little extra room. Feel free to just unmute and hop on. I just wanted to ask that I'm very thankful myself that we have the chance to participate in such kind of a conversation and that you are giving us the platform for it. Great. Well thanks. Thanks for being here. If any of the guests have another comment or remark to make you can jump in between the questions and we're just going to turn first to William Chan then who let's see you should be able to unmute. Yeah, I'm good. Hi, thank you for the for the really insightful conversation. I'm speaking as someone who really cares but also is mindful that I don't know and I'm just listening and learning as much as I can. Obviously, we all have to approach this like emergency care and prevent every death possible like a doctor would, but then on for someone like myself. In addition to supporting and and and donating whenever we can. I think a big part of it is to interconnect all the injustices and in my seems like it might seem like it's a it's a we we're doing the second layer. And I want to make sure that I'm not taking the energy away from the immediate care that that's needed right now, but to prevent the next, the next problem, even what is Ukraine 10 years from now or not a part of the world. We have to identify all the and they all kind of like they all favor similar is people is is individuals or entities with too much power and influence and because of that is makes it really hard for people to speak up, and that goes and and and and and also. I think everyone needs, you know, everyone needs to feel like they could contribute at whatever level that they can. Everyone needs to feel like they could contribute at whatever level that they can, and if you're brave enough and have the ability to go and fight the war that's great but if you have the ability to tackle it on a very local level I think that's just as good. And then the reason I say this is what poon is saying about the reasoning is very similar to what Bush said about the invasion into Iraq, and what the Chinese are talking about against the Muslim and what they're doing in Hong Kong. And how, while it seems like we can't do anything about Ukraine today because we're in New York City or wherever it is. We could start kind of building that that system that preventive measure against the other powers that's five 10 years down the road. And people are doing it in with MoMA divest or the oligarchs which is not just Russian oligarch is it is, it is the people the board of trustees and many of these big institutions where this government or museums, whenever, especially as artists because we, we, we believe we are poor, so that whenever a billionaire gives us a $50,000 grant it makes it really hard for us to speak out against someone who's given us $50,000, but their billionaires, and I close with this art doesn't change anything but it changes opinion but it also needs action. And once, since everyone here's opinions already changed, we need to go and actually do something and rise up to this challenge. Unfortunately, right now, there's a lot of injustices, and we might have to do more than just sharing a post. And whoever that could do something, just go that extra step if possible. Well, thank you. Thank you for the time. William. Okay, we're going to turn it to our very own Fong for a question, comment. Thank you Carolyn. Thank you you guys, all of you, all of you really just very enjoying my own upbringing in Vietnam having family members on both sides, my father and my mother have was dedicated committed to the vision of the Communist Party of the North, and the other half were sick and desperately for some democratic solution. And it was very confusing between the transition to the tail end of friend colonization in 1954 and the beginning of American involvement in the next 25 years. I heard you all. I applaud your various perspective personal meditation. It's real serious live experience. And I agree one thing here that I think is so urgent is how we as artists. Thank you, William. Or this might not provide any immediate solution. No work of art ever prevent the bombing of Guineca of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and elsewhere, but it can do is that it may great urgency in changing the idea of deep understanding in the same way we're trying to do here in regard to this information. That's where the usefulness of what we do in the audience humanities, how we subvert this information, just like when Hitler rose to power in summer of 1933 you all remember he capitalized on economic rules. He capitalized on public discontent and political infighting to take absolute power in Germany. And I remember it was the Austrian poet, the great poet car crowds who say the secret of the tyranny is to make himself as stupid as his audience. So they think they are as clever as he and that's where the job of what we do counts. We counter all of that. You know, it's that we have to mediate through thoughtfulness and coming together. So when someone like former President Trump say social distancing, we counter him since he was so good in speed using tweak to mobilize speed to destroy culture destroy language destroy anything. We do the opposite by amplify the slowness of culture like here. We talk as long we need to. But we do. We have to do it every day. We have to match that stamina when people upset with power. We know this through history you all. They don't go to sleep. They just do not go to sleep. I just now enter the second volume of Stephen Cochran who will be coming out program, the professor history at Princeton University, waiting for Hitler. He's working on the third volume now. I believe that it's great page turning as Robert Carol tree volume lbj. So I think the idea you are right. You are right by citing all the great Russian poet, Ukrainian writers and artists because people don't know about enough history. Young people particularly I hate to say this, but this is where we need to subvert information into knowledge information state as information get nowhere. It had to turn to knowledge and action as you say, William. It's both, you know, as a Japanese proverb say vision without action is a daydream, but action vision is a nightmare. So we know that we are embodied by great great thinker artists revolutionaries. These are amazing people that we know have warned us, you know, like we must excise sometime neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim, silent encouraged the tormentors, never the tool meant it. Can't remember who said you all. But all I know is that your silent out silent gift consent. We know that. So I feel courage what it takes to stand up and speak out and we must courage is all what it takes to also sit down and listen. So it's just, it's like both activeness or action has to be mediated so carefully you all. And I'm happy that we all come together. I don't remember exactly but Einstein maybe as an acceptance speech for Nobel Prize where he said the world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything. So that's what we are doing here so I'm grateful. This is the beginning of many part to come. We must be able to articulate to be thoughtfully share all of our at the moment anxiety, feeling of very complex kind. But by doing this coming together and sharing it clear up some of our ambivalent of what we're trying to express. I really feel clarity, great clarity from having her all of you speaking. So, stay in there please come in solidarity and don't thank you, Susan, thank you, Cassiana, Adriana, Julia, Anna, Luba. Who else am I missing, forgive me, Vladimir, but please stay together and to be continued because this is the beginning. The world is more complicated now and we can't afford when everything's going on in a broader perspective, very great depth of complexity, and we are being so deal by social media and everything else in between. We, our power is to think to meditate of all of it and able to live through it in order to live as knowledge, hopefully wisdom, hopefully wisdom and that's our strength. We must not stay in that information so in solidarity, my gratefulness and thank you for your I sent back to Carolyn and Nick and all of you and let's be in touch from now on, shall we. Thank you, thank you all. Thanks, Bong. Great, so we just wanted to one more time, turn it back to the guests if anybody wanted to make a final remark, or ask a question amongst to yourselves. Please, just take a pause to let you do that if you if you choose to. Generally, it's very difficult to have this conversation while people are being bombed and people are dying and we're reading these news every single day I'm like doom scrolling Twitter. The same as Luba, you know, I think that each of us should find the Ukrainian that's closest to them and ask them what they can do to help. Every little bit counts and we should just deploy all the resources that we have available to help Ukrainian survive. Because the atrocities that are happening there right now. They're not unprecedented. They've happened before in many places, but the visibility that Ukraine has is also unprecedented. And we need to make use of it to make sure that this never repeats. So I encourage everyone to find someone an individual organization whatever it is, help them, whether with your time, your money, however you want. We're also doing everything we can. And as artists and as cultural practitioners, we, as funk said we play the long game. We work in very different timescales than wars occur. We should focus on artists futures and we should focus on correcting the mistakes of the establishment. Because we're the only ones that will do it. If we don't do it, nobody will. So that is my final. I cannot agree more with Anton. I just wanted to add one thing. It might be helpful. It might be not. But since I'm volunteering in a lot of organizations currently, if anyone, you know, or anyone listening to us right now knows somebody who seeks refuge in Bulgaria or needs any kind of help related to Bulgaria. Just hit me up on social media on via email. However, just contact me. I will try to help any way possible. That's basically it. Thank you both for those final comments. So I'm really happy and grateful to turn this over to some Ukrainian poetry to close us out today. So, I'm going to go a step kin with us. And he is the editor and co translator with John Hennessy of Baben Yar Ukrainian poets respond, which is forthcoming this year. And he's the editor of an anthology New York elegies Ukrainian poems on the city from academic studies press. And he's also the co translator with John Hennessy of a new orthography selected poems by Sergio Zadan from Lost Horse Press in 2020. And with Vitaly Chernetsky of his songs for a dead rooster selected poems by Yuri Andrew Kovic. I hope I'm getting his names right. Lost Horse Press 2018. So, please welcome our staff, and you can unmute. Hello. Thank you for your kind introduction. I hope you hear me well. Today I'm going to read two poems by Sergio Zadan, who is one of the most important voices in Ukrainian literature today. He's a native of Luhansk region, so he has been living in the city of Harkiv for the last three decades, and he remains in the city now. The poems I'm going to read are from the collection and new orthography, which I call translated with John Hennessy, and which has an artwork by Hamlet Zinkiewski, an artist from Harkiv. I'm going to read two poems, which were originally published in Ukrainian in 2018. They are part of the cycle called, we've been talking about war for three years. The first poem I'm going to read, I'll do it in both Ukrainian and English. And the second one I'll do just in English. This one is untitled. A woman walks down the street. She stops in front of a store. She hesitates. She needs to buy bread. Buy it now or wait until tomorrow, she wonders. She reaches for her phone, talks with her mother, speaks sharply, doesn't listen, raises her voice. She yells as she stands in front of a shop window, as if she is yelling at her own reflection. She cuts off the conversation, not listening, and walks down the street cursing her invisible and so even more hateful mother. She cries at some offense from her. And because she can't forgive her, she forgets about the bread. She forgets about everything in the world. In the morning, the first shelling starts. A woman walks down the street. She stops in front of a store. She hesitates. She needs to buy bread. She ends up at home. A woman walks down the street. She stops in front of a store. She hesitates. She needs to buy bread. She stops in front of a shop window, as if she is yelling at her own reflection. She cuts off the conversation, not listening, and walks down the street cursing her invisible and so even more hateful mother. And because she can't forgive her, she forgets about the bread. She forgets about everything in the world. In the morning, the first shelling starts. After internment, he speaks expertly about all of it. That is, with hatred. The way he talks, it's better not to argue. He won't agree anyway. He'll hold his ground, believing this is the greatest virtue in a time of war, to hold your ground, to deny the sun, to deny the tides of the ocean. So, here goes. War, it's nothing. They talk about it like that, without adjectives. How did you feel? Nothing. How did they treat you? Nothing. How do you talk about it? Nothing. How do we live with all this now? Thank you. Thank you so, so much. What's up. Thank you for that reading. And thank you again so much to Yulia and Anna and Luba, Adriana, Susan, Marina, Anton, Vladimir, Lika, and Cassania. Thanks to Simon Dove from CEC ArtsLink. We put these on our YouTube channel, so this should be uploaded shortly. Share this conversation was truly incredible today. And please join us next Thursday. At the same time, we'll have a continuation of this conversation. It's titled Dissident Artists in Solidarity with Ukraine. Tomorrow at 1pm, we're hosting Dementions of Science and Spirit, a conversation featuring Christine Davis, Amy Meyers, Nina Sobol, Victoria Vesna, and Anne McCoy, with a poetry reading by Tony Ian Tosca. And thank you all so much again. We're really grateful to host this today. You can turn on your microphones to say bye as you leave. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you so much. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Luba. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Yulia. Thank you for the reading. Thank you, Luba. Thank you all. Thank you, Yulia. Thank you. I hope to see you soon. We are hoping to see you soon. Thank you. To be continued in solidarity. Thank you. Thank you. Solidarity. Much love you guys. Thank you.