 related to international experience, which is relevant to the topic of the conference, which is building connections within the artistic and cultural societies in Ukraine, but also abroad, and we are sure, and we also could see that from the previous presentations that this experience is very relevant to what we are experiencing right now. And I would like to pass the mic to the first presenter, who is Karen Jagadin, from the Obama Museum of Occupations and Freedom in Tallinn, Estonia. Karen is here with us online, and Karen, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you very much, and good evening to everybody. It's a pleasure to join you all online, and as I said, I will be presenting the experience of Obama. I will just shortly start sharing my screen, so that you can also follow what I'm about to talk to you. So, I'm the Executive Director of the Museum, and we have a rather good global Estonian network with whom we are working, all have been trying to work at least, so I will be just sharing the experience that I have from our institution and a bit of the feedback that I also gave from other colleagues from the museum field, how they, from their institutional perspective, try to stay connected with global Estonians. But to begin with, just very shortly also about our museum. Wabamu is the largest active non-profit museum in Estonia, so we are a private museum, which makes us a bit different in the museum field of Estonia. Our mission is to educate the people of Estonia and its visitors. Okay, they are, I don't know why they are changing themselves, okay? And all our mission is based on the sense of freedom, so how to advocate for freedom, for justice, for the rule of law, how to make people understand their responsibility on keeping freedom. And a very big part of our mission is grounded to the founder of the museum, Olga Kistler-Ritzo, who was an Estonian-American refugee, and the museum was then founded in partnership with the Estonian government. And already at the opening, although the first title of the museum was called the Museum of Occupations, the President Leonard Meri declared Wabamu to be the freedom's house. So our concept, although we are talking about difficult past and difficult destinies and choices that the people have had in Estonia, we are always talking about that through the perspective of freedom. So Olga Kistler-Ritzo, the founder of the museum, as said on the previous slide, was an Estonian-American war refugee. She was actually born in 1920 in Kiev, in Ukraine. Her father was Estonian, her mother was Polish origin, and in 1920s when she was just a few years old, her family decided to move back to Estonia from Kiev and on their way back to Estonia through Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution and events, her father was imprisoned and sent to the Gulag prison camp and died there, and her mother was caught fatally ill and passed away as well. So as just a few years old little girl, she was suddenly orphanaged together with her brother. The family members managed to get them to Estonia, they were brought up here by relatives and other family friends, and by 1944, during the Second World War, by spring 1944, she created the University of Tatu in Estonia as a doctor, as a medical doctor, and in September 1944, just before the Soviet army occupied Estonia, she was one of the 80,000 Estonian citizens who fled Estonia during the Second World War. So she ended up being for years in the German refugee camps, and by the end of 1940s, she managed to get on to the United States of America, and she lived the rest of her life and had a very good career as a medical doctor there in the US. So why this context is important is that she is a war refugee, she has personally lived through what it means to leave your homeland, and she had a very strong mission to give back to Estonia. So in 1991, when Estonia became independent again, she decided to think about what is what she can do for Estonia, and in 1998 she founded the Kisle Ritzer Foundation, and as a result in 2003 the Museum of Occupations was opened in Tallinn. So I hope some of you have visited us, if not you are all very welcome to come and visit us in Tallinn. We have the first building in Estonia that is purposefully being built as a museum, and recently just in 2018 the new permanent exhibition was opened, and together with the new permanent exhibition also the new name Vabamo, the Museum of Occupations and Freedom, was introduced. So what this leaves us with is that we have a very strong culture of experiencing giving back mentality. So when you have been doing well, when you are privileged in your life and you have had the chance to leave the country, to survive the war and have a new life and career somewhere abroad, you start to think what is it that I can give back to my homeland. As she fled to US, her family has a very, through the museum has very strong connections and ties with North American Estonian expert communities, so not only in US but also in Canada, and we have also a new wave of global Estonians and friends of Estonia who have either become friends of Estonia within the last 15 or 20 years or Estonians who have left Estonia within the last 10, 15 years. So they are not war refugees but they are people who have left Estonia because of education, job carriers, choices in private life, they have found a decision, they have made the decision in the life why they want to live somewhere else, but they are very much connected to Estonia and we like to call them as the global Estonians because they also share the mentality of being connected to Estonia and trying to give somehow back something to to Estonian society and to Estonian cultural field. As I was trying to think about a framework, how to explain the way we operate with expert communities or global Estonians, I think the best framework to to describe it is through time, talent and treasure. These are the ways people have stayed connected with us and these are the way we like group them on based on how they how they stay connected with us. So time, first resource is time, you can think about ways how you can engage with people so that they put time into your organization. So one of the ways we have experienced it that while we have been having different collecting campaigns, for example, eight millimeter of life or different stories, letters, correspondences, artifacts, historical artifacts about expert communities and their destinies, is that the people who live among those foreign communities can be the people who put their time into finding these stories, how finding these films or photographs or letters and correspondences and can work for us based on the time they put into this project. One other way how we stay connected with these people based on time resources working in advisory boards. So we have a tradition on different branches of activities that we have in our museum to form also advisory boards or supervisory councils and putting just quarterly a few hours into the organization through those networks and ideas that you share in the advisory boards can be very valuable. Usually people who build their new life in a new country become very good at networking among local communities. So they can be your resources on doing networking on those areas and on those regions. And finally they basically start to work for you as your institutions ambassadors. So they are your ambassadors abroad in different countries or in different communities and they can put if they decide and if you come to this agreement to really be your networking advisory and and idea sharing resources based on the time they put into an organization. The second was keyword talent. So this is very much around the professional qualifications and the expertise that the people have. So they are usually curators, translators, editors, people who can work abroad, live abroad, but stay connected based on their professional career and professional knowledge with your institution. And I think this is the main way how Estonian museums stay connected with experts that have moved abroad that they still work for their museum as a curator, as a translator, editor. So something that is connected to the content. They can very easily be also project manager. For example, we in Wabamu have very good experiences how Estonians who live abroad become project managers for traveling exhibitions and programs for us there abroad. So you really need to work closely together with the locations and the people you want to engage with and they can do it much better there than we hear from Estonia. And also for the community and experts events like for example in Estonia, we have very popular Estonians. So these are for the Estonian communities and the experts who want to come and have their event in Estonia every second year, every third year. So this is the way how we can bridge and bring them together and those people together through also these experts that live abroad. And the third keyword was about treasure. So one of the main ways of evaluating treasure is through giving back. So for example, if you have already lived long enough abroad and you have been privileged to build some kind of capital, there might be this mentality of giving back to your homeland. And it can be also about finances and money and putting this back to the society. But it doesn't necessarily have to be about the treasure that the person privately has. It can be also through fundraising campaigns and networks. So for example, when Wabamu opened in 2018 the new permanent exhibition, then a big fundraising campaign was done in US. And we from Estonia would have never known exactly the way the fundraising works in US. So we did these through the key people, the key Estonian people who are living in US, who have the networks, who have the connections, who know how to stay connected, who know what kind of messages to use. And it was really important that we have these people there who can help us with fundraising campaigns. And right now we are really developing our Global Conversations activity branch, which is one of the third activity pillars of our museums that is dedicated to international events and connections. And a lot of the global activities, the funds for that activity branch is also fundraised abroad. So again, we are trying to use the same scheme that for fundraising abroad we need to have people working there, living there, knowing the context, knowing the conditions. But if they are Estonians then they also understand our ways of working and we can really bridge those knowledges together. So time talent treasure, this is basically how we do it. We think about who are the people who can give their time to us, who are the people who can give their knowledge, their talent and stay connected with our institution to that aspect. And then the treasure, the way how we can collaborate on funds and fundraising and different grants and projects like that. So when I try to think about some prerequisites and conclusions, what we have learned, it's really crucial, it's really important that you have this transparency and trust in your organization, that people really want to work with you and want to stay connected. So they have the leadership and they are certain of the leadership team and the team execution, that the ideas that they are putting, the time and talent that they are putting into our organization really pays off and is being executed. It really needs flexibility on time schedules, even on work hours and time because of time zones. So as we work a lot with US and Canada, we are all the time facing the question of different time zones and when we can meet people online, what are the different traditions of working? I guess in general, Estonia has become really flexible on working hours and distance working already before Covid times, but especially the Covid times show that we really have all the digital means to work from different locations. We don't necessarily have to be everybody in one office. I think it's culturally different. It depends how your culture works on distance and how your organization supports flexibility. But I think with working with people living abroad, it's really important to be flexible. It's always better to start with existing connections and then build new ones atop. So I think our first existing connection was the founder's family. Olga Kistleritso herself has passed away, but her daughter is right now the head of the supervisory council. Her whole family is very much connected still to Estonia and to the mission of Babamo. And the first network very much was built based on their personal connections. So you start from something that you have and then you build up on from there. And then just be clear on what do you need as an institution? What do you need from these people? Is it the time? Is it the talent or the treasure? So this is maybe one set of tools that will help you prioritize or just see the way of being connected with your global communities or it's just sharing this way how we have been doing this so far. So I hope this gave you some kind of an idea what we do here in Babamo and how we try to work with our global communities. Okay. Thank you so much for this very meaningful and full of insights presentation. We'll be waiting for you to join our question and answer session because I'm sure we'll have some questions for you. And now I would like to pass the mic to Yava Astakhovska from Latvia Center for Contemporary Arts in Riga. Latvia, Yava, the floor is yours. Hello. Do you hear me now? Yeah, we can hear you. Yes, thank you. Yeah, hello. I'm glad to join you in this hybrid forum being still in Riga. And I don't know, maybe as I did manage how to share my presentation myself, I'll need some help. Maybe you can put the first slide. On the screen. The slide is on the screen so you can proceed. Okay. Yeah, thank you. So I gave the title of my presentation issue of Migration Cultural Workers Institutional Perspective from Latvia. And in that sense my narrative of my presentation will be a bit broader than and then the previous one, which was discussing a concrete experience of museum in Estonia. Even though I'm here probably representing also my institution, which is Latvian Center for Contemporary Arts. We're working as curator and a researcher dealing a lot with socialists and post-socialist context, entanglement of post-socialist and post-colonial perspectives in both the countries at least in Europe. But here maybe I'll talk more about institutional content than content directly. So concerning the issue of migration of cultural workers coming from Latvia, of course the context I can share here is one hand very different from the screen, which is in the focus of this assembly and which is already the next month in this violent war. On the other hand I see also similarity in our countries and a lot of these aspects were discussed already in previous sessions. I managed to listen. Still I can only talk about peace immigration and today of course situation is very different from 1940s when also Latvia faced war and when escaping Soviet regime from Latvia about 10% of the population emigrated to the west and also stayed there. And among very many intellectuals including artists and counting together both emigrated and deported people to Siberia bring older to Latvia lost almost one third of its population. And here maybe you could show the second slide. So talking about the intellectuals and artists who emigrated to the west escaping the Soviet regime, at that time only a few of them were able to continue working in the profession. And even those who did were mostly active in local exile communities but often also cultivating very nostalgic memories of their lost homeland that had little to do with the actual reality and also with the actual art scene in the countries that live. And what you can see on the screen is slides from the project by colleagues at the Latvian Center for Contemporary Arts developed. They were researched in the context about Latvian exile and emigrated contemporary art. This was exhibition series that called Portable Landscapes. The project aimed to situate Latvian emigrant and exile artists in the broader context of histories of art, migration and civilization. And what the project did was revealing very multi-layered and polyphonic landscapes which are still related to the past of Latvia and also in the very different ways also to the present of that time and also the national context. And here you could show also the second slide. So these are different photos from the project which were part of the Troubling Portable Landscapes project. Some migration stories today of people working in culture and art both whether in peacetime or water emigration. Is it often they have the opportunity to continue both working in cultural sphere in recent decades has been largely to be internationally interconnected and that's the main value for contemporary culture. Another essential layer talking about cultural vegetation is related to the cultural geographical and also this cultural historical context. And Latvia, unlike Ukraine, is the small country and therefore it is often perceived as very partial or unknown and literally still today some visitors from the West are calling it a Stada cognita and Baltic region is often overlooked by Eastern European scholarly art world. And at the same time it is also not much identifying any with the Soviet past and legacy. But thinking what is common for our countries it is definitely a perspective that immigration of culture workers is a process that reduces helps to reduce the exclusion and marginalization that we still face. In our art scenes in the international view on one hand it is bringing more active international change into the environment and it is also more actively introducing our arts internationally developing regional connection maybe sometimes is a more important also active international relations and collaborations on individual institutional level for artists, researchers and institutions. And these migration issues of course are relevant both at the individual level and the institutional level on the individual level as one of the most important kind of emphasize education as art students often go to study in the West and which when now Latvia which is part of the Union it is very easily that can be very easily done. And young people willing to study art especially in the Netherlands before it is also in the UK and of snowy countries where education in all fields is much better and consequently starting capital of these young people both if they return or if they stay and up higher and of course it has impacts on international networking for years. And you can again if you can show the slides a few examples of yeah the next slide please. The examples of three artists most of them are like two of them are living abroad like Oliva Stiljeva and Daiga Grantinja and Eva Epner is artist who is living in Latvia and Riga but definitely through their art education that international careers have developed very successfully. And here you could show the next slide please. When talking about the institutional level I would also say that we benefit from immigration and internationalization of the art in many ways. Here put three outlet points through more so one is through more actively developed cooperation projects and here in the slide in the left side you can see this logo of project status is from contemplated past and future which is one of such examples supported by Creative Europe program that helps also to organize international exhibitions for example today we are open to exhibition at Malmo which is part of this project of future at Malmo and it's a project that the central switch is a collection of Latvian art from the late 30s. It's curated by two curators one of them is Ingolati who is one of such migrating artworkers and through this project we very very literally see that it's not a lot it's a huge benefit that our previous colleagues continue to collaborate with us and also general development of cultural intellectual work, critical thinking and international dialogue and again third slide you see it's also part of the project website where we just brought out different keywords, different themes which are coming for this project and definitely through this migrating context it's also the development of the discourse example of terms like the coloniality, the good past, ecologies, feminism, gender, solidarity, both socialists can be brought to them for so the projects like this they allow to strengthen also regional collaborations and develop more nuanced views on discourse and content that are relevant for us so here you maybe could come to the last slide so yeah just a few conclusions trying to sum up this context where basically from this case studies I can analyze that I always see the immigration of people, arts and cultural things today can be rather seen as a benefit not a lot of problem or difficulty we should focus and it's inevitably showed that immigration also relates to issues of identity and belonging in context of globalization where neither artists nor institutions are no longer tied to one place or how just fixed in one country and this question of belonging is refluid and changing even though it's still of course relevant and also artists and creative practitioners are no longer tied to one place but are kind of in a flux between the places absorbing the necessary contextual or cultural phenomena and then combining them in resources they need so yeah that was the experience I wanted to share with you I will finish also here thank you thank you thank you Yava for for sharing this information with us and okay the sound is on and I would like to give the floor to the third Yava please stay with us for the question and answer session just a reminder that we'll be waiting for you and now I would like to give the floor to the third and last but not least presenter Guillaume Tautas Maseikis if I'm sorry if I mispronounce your name as a philosopher, cultural theorist, anthropologist and professor at the Witautas Magnum University in Kaunas, Lithuania with the presentation Rebridging of Cultural Networks in Menzy Morzhe Guillaume Tautas the mic and the floor is yours I send my, probably you don't have my presentation, no? Simon could you re-send, okay I will start yeah yeah thank you actually I am, I asked one moment the Yana and when I asked him I said that I'm a philosopher and working in the field of critical theory and the critical theory principles some dialectical approach it means that the system to show contradictions you know between social and economical or cultural contradictions on the different objects and today I would like to speak as well on some issues and I try to react on the what's going on in this conference because I have had and have a good opportunity to listen to you and to participate thank you and now I will start and first of all I need to remark you that philosophers work in with the concepts and metaphors and use them to open the reality critical theory which I follow opens ambiguity of reality than the contradictory processes in it so we use ordinary not only language metaphors but as well pictures of the metaphors and this is why I would like to show some some of them but not as a artworks but first of all as some in the other condition the metaphors and first of all I'd like to show but you remember Antonovsky bridge which on my opinion after destruction all the history with Antonovsky bridge in her son was a very nice example metaphorical example according which we must build bridges that can be destroyed you know that's to remember that the success of cultural development directly depends on international inclusion and bridging activities a bridge is metaphor cultural and economic exchange dialogue and creativity between two separated banks among the gape or the rapture between among the people and ordinary when we are talking about migration even in Lithuania I participated in few of projects we were which we call re bridging re bridging means to build a new form new type of bridges which could which could which could help us to communicate but at the beginning we interpreted them and correct in incorrect way because we considered that bridges is first of all means returning returning but bridges means returning but you know it's not very correct because bridge any bridge has many functions it's not only about returning but as well about two side movements or sometimes they need to be to be destroyed successful bridge presupposes two side movement departing and returning all the time bridge brings us strangers and they can be friends merchants vagabonds and enemies also Antonovsky bridge is the best example of such a variety and its story can be used it was built too good too strong and was too important to be destroyed when Ukrainian military forces retreated from her son when the nation which call itself as a brother came with bloody war and many disasters the metaphor tells us not to build too strong bridges even when you try to create the eternal brotherhood or imagined family to destroy bridges means to send in this our case to send proputeness out as well the best in this sense is to build so-called draw bridges of the castles you know that draw bridges is the bridges which could you which could be raised up and down you know that's dependent from political situation or your friendship however there are bridges that that to do not connect banks bridges that are dead ends bridges that that are dead ends the symbol of such the symbol the symbol of such is so-called a plumb burger bruce form a symbol of prussia prussia in konigsberg prussian leave the land in order not to return more the dead end of bridges or roads symbolizes an illusion of cultural communication when the nation create hermetic islands of traumas in another way i think that to consider this palm burger bruce caddis palm burger bridge of konigsberg i specially mentioned konigsberg not kaliningrad it's very good i would say example of my presentation you know that new nation which came into empty lands didn't recognize the importance of this bridge you know and this bridge stayed until 2016 you know for a long time as some memorizing about that former nations could not return and that bridges was break that's dead end and even many of germanies and could don't like to remember it as some kind of traumatic traumatic memory and they prefer to just to to forget to not not just to forget but to i would say to to keep traumatic silence to keep traumatic silence to keep traumatic silence trauma could can be the deepest memory and it need the hermetic consciousness hermetic consciousness means that there is no communication more about it the end the dead end means absence of communication absence of exchange of ideas that's this is total some kind of total end i i have that the only other example which is not about bridges it's you know a railroad to auschwitz which was as well called as dead dead end you know that and for many of people but this bridge is as well some kind of dead end so we need to separate from from such kind of bridges the so-called creative disjunctions i think that the story of konigsberg were not learned and ukrainian for example luhansk can has the same destiny if the title for example of voroshilovo grad will be returned back so the next my slide it's you know that you see this picture from from odessa this you know that lenin transformed into hero of star wars that's you know that's excellent i would say excellent situation is international situation is to work and it means that this is the work which don't which doesn't union us but descent or separate us that's the work which separate us from soviet nostalgia the role of artist is ambiguous to provoke to create diversity in that one and the same time consent and descent union and rapture to provoke and wonder however the state for example ukraine which fights for the freedom needs unity mobilization sacrificing condemnation of the enemies and art pays big price by refusing its ambiguity and possibility to provoke to create the others and even strangers i would say that the idea of unity it's quite dangerous because one of the reason or one of the i would say aim aim of that according for example a manuel levinas is to create the others it create the otherness not to be similar you know uh to confront to create confrontation between each other and when state in and the state invites us to create to to to build unity to mobilize us it works against against the art nature the nature of art so a few words about life and death life and death networking or about monoculturalism yesterday and today we spoke a lot about networking in a very positive sense always mentioned that it's like panacea from all the diseases you know that it means like if we will create some network you know everything will be okay now i would like to speak as well about that networking from one side networking means active communication from the other side it can be used for providing of propaganda making of hermetic community communicative bubbles or manufacturing of monocultures the nations in the condition of emergency creates demands for monocultural development monoculturalism is the other phase of globalization or nationalization or one-dimensional society monoculturalism is that culture i mean toxic nationalist networks and authoritarian power or or oppressive systems they copy each other invites each other to share useful experience but not but do not create open works of art in open works of art the living power of the rizoma is a symbiotic relationships a deeper dependence on each other the example can be plantations of corn plantations of corn it's a or grain or the other and you know manufacture it manufacture it plants could be example of not only monoculturalism but as well so-called monocultural deserts monocultural deserts contrary diversity means the animals each eat animals eat each other in ecospheres symbiotic species destroy each other and only in this way they create they create echo they create ecosphere you know that's a forest ponds and tropic forest symbiotic eating each other in order it happens in order to develop common benefit and is very difficult idea but creative cultural diversity needs it i think that you see that ordinary we speak about love and friendship now i'm speaking about needs to eat each other you know to destroy each other why because this is the only one way how rich ecosystems could survive if we are friendly we looks like corn plantations you know one dimensional society with huge love inside you know or exactly totalitarian terror totalitarian terror could be translated into love and humanism that the most totalitarian countries means and thinks that they mean and think that they are the most human humanistic humanistic this is so i'm talking about symbiotic eating each other actually in metaphorical sense not not too much not in the cannibalistic but why maybe in this one possible this is a why critical theory criticizes false humanism and p-thritoric for example for example putin's propaganda seeks deliberation and called that they the aim is stopping the war today you know russian broadcasts speaks repeat and repeat they are looking for deliberation some diplomatic relationships with ukraine and they declare that we are for the peace you know and ukraine for the war you know look and many of international international communities and institutions and organizations they just repeat this putinist rhetoric we are for the peace and what does mean this peace in this sense peace means oppression you know peace means that you will be defeated you know or peace means that colonization peace means destruction of freedom and identity what this is the the the peace and the rhetoric of peace could be very falsified then the another my metaphor oh it's actually there are many forms of diversity in ecosystems and one of the examples it could be subcultural diversity ordinary multiculturalism and diversity of subcultures diversity of subcultures represents the system ecosystem where metaphorically one subculture eats the other subculture and for them it's normal because this is the only principle of mutation and development next my example is about open waters i tell a lot of times in lithuania about importance of open waters open waters in the case of migration means that people looks like many of rivers you know many of rivers and we we flow in different in different countries and this is the only one case when and so called when waters could be clean in the other case in the other case if there is not open waters and if there is no ecosystem where one speaks each eat eat sorry eat the other we could get so dead waters dead waters means as well close waters and migration is normal condition of life of people and only forcefully displaced persons are problem so we have to separate exiled displaced persons and migrants ordinary we speak we mix all of them that it looks like migrants and refugees and displaced persons are the same not at all displaced for purpose are forcefully exiled you know and migrants are that's normal condition of nomadic people who travel from one place to the to the other and we and when we are talking about rebuilding bridges bridges what do we mean are we speaking about migration that is normal condition for all people you know to migrate around the world or we are talking about returning of displaced persons you know this returning of displaced persons that two colleagues from Latvia and Estonia they mentioned about the Siberian Gulagian situation there we could call them as well displaced persons you know that's this not because they are free migrants then next my metaphor it's okay this one I mentioned this is about monocultural monoculturalism and how this monoculturalism makes so so agricultural deserts okay and the last my example is about the deterioration deterioration you know de-territorialization that's always you know this problem to pronounce this word this topic of deterioration it was very popular between postmodern thinkers and artists it means that we create a global condition we don't need to be in one space you know one time one time we are different and we are nomads just as normal however there is the other possibility for the same concept that some states would like to clean territories you know and this cleaning of territories from one group of people you know or genocide from one group of people means as well de-territorialization you know so we see in this case as well ambiguous concept ambiguity of concept and contradiction of this concept which as well which could be and should be should be you know considered I am sure that some de-territorialization happens in Ukraine now you know and in future it will be there are a lot of problems how to recreate you know eco niches of many of people one time last my example you know from 2000 from the this yeah from 2000 many of Lithuanians as everywhere in Baltic countries are in Poland migrated you know abroad then we but it was free migration normal migration we invited invited them back and one mayor of city asked me that so many creative people leave the city and they traveled around the world and don't like to return back and he asked me what I could propose suggest to him and my suggestion was you need to buy Bohemia Bohemia artist Bohemia he asked this drink and drug artist should I buy and to invite to the city yes I said you should buy you know free sexual free different races Bohemia which uses probably drugs and they behave in incorrect way but only this opening will return back creative people you know if you would like to build city of just labor workers you know this cheap labor forces okay you could do it you know but it's not about returning of creative people if you would like to return them back you have to rethink your ethics with your ethical approach to artists thank you thank you you doubt us for the presentation we have very different approaches to to the question of migration and okay I'm happy that we have Yava and Karen here with us I suggest we start with questions if you have any to our presenters and then we can also have a few minutes for general session of questions reflections and comments on two days of the conference so if anyone has the question please raise your hand and we will give you the microphone for the speakers to hear okay we have from everyone asteroid I can pass the mic to you just a second yeah I have a question and a comment for the last presenter and I hope it will help and clear up things for the previous presenters as well you have been thinking in parallel to natural history and to ecology and you have been coining this very important term of the previous epoch of the epoch of postmodernism which is the other but my impression is that you mixed up the concept of the other was the concept of enemy and in my understanding of reading all the books which were devoted to the topic the other is not necessarily the enemy more than that the other is not necessarily the radical other there is a spectrum of otherness we can start with close other we can start from neighbor then stranger then guest and so on and so forth we also can think about being the other to ourselves and in that respect you have been trying to impose at least I understand that on Ukraine the threat of monoculturalism but what I see in Ukraine now we just on the contrary during this war which started not on the February 22 but on the beginning of the year 2014 actually we are rediscovering and reinventing the diversity and complexity of Ukrainian society itself we are this rediscovering the Jewish heritage of Ukraine the Crimean Tatars living heritage of Ukraine the Greeks of Mariupol and many others but these also are sub-cultural communities these also are different age groups which in many respects are the other to each other but they are now collaborate and they unite under the threat but it doesn't make them the same this is the experience of common threat and common resistance but right just imagine that we come to the point of safety network again and this diversity will flourish again we are like big Italian family we quarrel all the time we only stop when there is this bigger threat before us thank you thank you nice comment I accept everything yeah but you know that's what you say okay I don't see that very big contradictions because I didn't mention that the other is enemy but I accept that that otherness could be very different which you try to classify it you know okay that they could be very different the second that otherness presuppose ethical attitude to each other it's not only about it's not about political political means a little bit different it's about competition it's about conflict it's about the deliberation it's less about ethical issues so in any way in any way I am not sure that the war is the best condition for the development of diversity but it's not the guilty of Ukraine you know we everybody knows knows about it however in any case that a provocation is which could create so-called creative rapture I'm this I took this concept of creative creative rapture from European Commission so-called green book you know which recommended for EU countries to develop the art which it will be not oriented the only about sustainable development but as well about creative raptures I mean creative diversities which doesn't guarantee doesn't guarantee that common understanding that this is normal it's normal not to understand each other you know should be I one time I remember George Soros came to Lithuania one postmodern exhibition and when he looked he financed this exhibition and when he looked he back to microphone and start to speak very strange language and no one translator could translate him later he asked translators did you understand me everybody said we don't know what which language do you speak and he answered I didn't understand this exhibition as well you see but it was his but he financed all this exhibition and accepted it means that we could accept those the things which could not which we could not understand what's happened in the situation of consent when we're looking for consent even if this consent about so-called or benefit of society or you know that good visions of society the consent in any way means that we lost the possibility of dissent and my presentation was not not I make my I made my presentation not to criticize artist situation in Ukraine but rather it was reaction on uh attempts to to find consent between artists you know on my opinion consent between artists could be toxic thank you thank you can't help us for this comment uh and before I pass the mic to the audience I have a question to all of the presenters I would like to ask you for for to share from your observations and your experience how to because we were talking a lot about people being relocated about different kinds of migrations and the ways how we can stay connected nevertheless and it is very valuable but how do we stay integrated in the local cultural field because when you are away it is difficult to understand all the details of what is happening in in your country in your in the culture of your country and maybe you have some observations of how can we stay integrated in in this general cultural field of of the country maybe someone from our online participants would like to to share your okay maybe try to comment on it but I think it's really important and also when I was thinking about it but it's not art but layers about immigration as speaking in Latvian context and I think it is this kind of connection uh definitely international connection is which is much more fruitful than staying just just staying in the locality but at the same time it is it is not losing understanding of of the quality and I think especially actually for the current global context it it is showing that it is possible to stay in a still very nuanced in understanding of the qualities and actually I like this this context of transfer policy at the same time being the international being connected with different and it doesn't necessarily mean losing the nuances or nuanced multi-eared understandings of maybe the context you are the person you're from and at that point find yourself or himself global you know maybe a very general thank you thank you and if the sound in the audience is not as good as it is online so if your experience in difficulties you can take the headphones because the translation works better if there is some difficulties with the sound I don't know Yava maybe you oh I'm sorry Karen maybe you have anything to add yes I'm I'm very sorry I thought that it might be problem of my computer but Yava's talk has a very strong echo so I couldn't really catch everything that you were you were saying but but if I caught the right idea I think it's very much something that I would also like to reflect that I think I don't know if it has something to do with a small nation big nation controversy but I think in general the contemporary art world and the contemporary culture field in general is very international at least in Estonia it is anyways a way of doing things here so I think as per se the culture life is already very international and and taking part of different international exhibitions or symposiums is part of the start of the art life and cultural life in general then this is not I don't think it's necessarily an issue that if you are a migrant or a global citizen that it's very difficult to stay connected with something that is going on in Estonia but at the same time I do believe that new societies new environments no new locations tend to swallow people so it is an emphasis sort of to stay connected it needs dedication to stay connected because I think especially what our experience in the Estonian museum sector is that when people migrate and move away they need to take effort to stay connected with the cultural field and the institutional level in Estonia because it's it's just very humane that the new location tends to swallow with very quickly. Thank you Karan, do you have anything to add? Okay that's I would like to add to the previous question and your question the previous question on my opinion was wonderful and that's I remember about that situation that this internalization or international communities of artists in both the countries means a little bit different probably than in Ukraine because what I found interesting for me in Ukraine it's that you are talking about decolonization decolonization on my opinion is very very important topic decolonization presupposed as well some kind of dissent between those who support for example Mikhail Bulgakov and those who criticize him or between them who try to understand Josie Brodsky and those who criticize him and there are many of such cases you know and I think that the boss situation there is you could be useful you know said that the debates debates could be only in the case if we interpret it differently why it's in Lithuania it's not very relevant for Lithuania because Lithuania okay because this language differences probably in Estonia the same Latvia the same language differences between Russian and Lithuania that many okay Russians never were very interested in so small nation you know and didn't write you know some versus against Lithuania independence and you know in this case when we are talking about decolonization Lithuania we are doing it so this quite empty topic without the deep content there is no what to discuss too much about you know decolonization because the very rare cases of colonization that's two cultures were not mixed you know and I think that the decolonization in a Ukrainian case is painful but it should be on my case on my viewpoint completely disaster and Belarusian situation when they will start to speak about decolonization when decolonization means some suicide that's it's not for me it's not clear because you know the some the some symbiotic some some symbiotic relationships could be so intensive that you bring when you break this symbiotic relationship it's not clear how culture could successfully survive I would say and thank you I think that we lack of time and I agree that decolonization issues are very important but we will need additional three days to to talk about this and let's not shift away from from the topic of our discussion today if anyone here has a question or a comment we can pass the mic okay we have we have a question from Alevtina a comment okay anyway I will make a comment about decolonization actually since Ukrainian started to travel more because the war and I was in Estonia and what I noticed that decolonization also have to happen with citizens of Estonia citizens of Lithuania and Latvia who do speak Russian because they look like in your speech others and I was for instance in one museum doesn't matter I just will not tell the title of the exhibition that's not so much important the interesting thing I noticed there was the audio guide which was in Estonia and it was in Russian and two versions of those were different and I suppose the decorator who is Estonian speaking person even haven't checked and I was almost screaming when I noticed this difference and be honest when I was in Tallinn I was looking on the situation there and my very clear understanding of the colonization for the people who do live in Estonia Lithuania and Latvia who do speak Russian till now and it's so hard even just to take taxi without hearing Russian sentence thank you Alevtina I don't know maybe Karen has something to add I from the feedback from artistic society I also heard that it's pretty typical for for Estonian media as well to have this different information in Estonian and in Russian for example but maybe you could give a bit of more context to what Alevtina had been saying it was partly true it's part of the way messages are delivered and I think that in some areas people are also super cautious and aware how to what kind of a vocabulary or what kind of ways of messaging to use whether you do it in Estonian or you do it in in Russian if the reference was towards the audio guide at Babamo then as much as I have heard they actually consciously made the decision to use some topics and some sentences differently in Estonian and in Russian while creating and curating the exhibition and the and the audio guide just to to make some of the ideas and points more clear or more in just to the audience that might be listening to it so yes I think this criticism is very relevant that we have been using this in Estonian society we're still using this that we we tend to approach these audiences differently and message them differently thank you I agree that we have the decolonization as a process and that is what's happening in probably all countries that share this post-imperial heritage after Russian Empire and Soviet Union and we have a lot of work to do but as I said we'll need three more days for for this topic to share if we have more questions we have time for just one question or comment I just say it was not in your museum it was in Narva but in Russian audio guide was no word queer but in Estonian version of audio guide was word queer this is was the difference and I don't think this is the relevant to actually make the messages to to audience because I would say the value to let people to identify themselves as queer must you be relevant to Russian speaking people in Estonia and Estonian speaking people in Estonia I think we can all agree on that looks like we don't have any additional questions then I will thank all of the participants for your presentations thank you the experience you shared is is truly valuable for us and as I said we'll be working with analytics on these presentations so hopefully this will come to a set of recommendations and we will use this international experience in terms of working continually working with a migration problem in Ukraine and abroad so thank you all for for sharing your experience and it was a pleasure to have you at least online with us but we have to stay connected in various ways and by this I would like to end today's conversations we'll be having dinner in 15 minutes at the same place and we can share our our observations there so thank thank you everyone