Community (Dis)Connections: How Culture Helps and Has Its Limits

Communities shaped by displacement, return and separation are finding new ways to stay connected. Cultural practice plays a vital role in creating spaces where people can meet, process experience and rebuild trust. On 5 March, Culture Helps Solidarity brings together cultural practitioners from Ukraine and the diaspora to share how this work is carried out in practice.

This online session explores how artistic and community-based approaches support connection, memory and recovery in the context of ongoing war and migration.

On the agenda:

• Alona Karavai, co-founder of Insha Osvita and Asortymentna Kimnata, will present the Scattered Communities programme and approaches to sustaining connection within the Ukrainian cultural field across borders;

• Yevhenia Nesterovych, cultural manager and head of the NGO Post Bellum-Ukraine, will speak about memory work and the creation of spaces for difficult conversations;

• Olena Herasymiuk, poet and paramedic with the Hospitallers, will share her experience of art-therapeutic work supporting veterans through the MAK 4.5.0 project;

• Nastya Khlestova, curator and co-founder of Garage 123, will reflect on working with Ukrainian artists and cultural workers in Graz and supporting the community abroad.

The webinar is part of Culture Helps Solidarity / Культура допомагає: Солідарність, a Creative Europe-funded programme (2025–2028) implemented by the European Cultural Foundation together with Insha Osvita (Kyiv), zusa (Berlin) and the VETERANKA Movement (Kyiv). The programme supports cultural professionals in sustaining care, creativity and community connection during and beyond the war.

Register here: https://form.typeform.com/to/Et6fyAM2

This session is especially relevant for cultural practitioners, organisations and applicants interested in the Culture Helps Solidarity calls, offering practical insight into how cultural work supports resilience, belonging and everyday continuity in times of disruption.