Cultural Business Education Hub: Essays by Ukrainians in the fight for freedom

Every Story Matters

Cultural Business Education Hub NGO, NPO is an Ukraine-born team of researchers, interviewers, editors, fact checkers, proofreaders, program directors, web and graphic designers, illustrators and translators who organise against disinformation.

In the scope of European Cultural Foundation’s Culture of Solidarity Fund, Cultural Business Education Hub proposes to collect an online-library of essays by Ukrainians in the fight for freedom, illustrate and share them with English-speaking audiences. These will highlight narratives on strength, dignity, support and humane values. Dialogues with intellectuals and cultural actors worldwide will give analysis to the stories in anthropological, sociological, cultural and philosophical terms.

Ukraine is experiencing in real time those threats that directly concern the Western world. Eyewitness accounts should be heard loudly and in important media. Every story matters because there is a person behind each. Being ‘a war in smartphone’, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has frontlines both in the physical and informational space. In such a war of meanings and senses, it is important to have enough free sources of information to draw the right conclusions and correctly understand events.

We discussed the project with Julia Ovcharenko (Council Director and Programme Director) and Demyan Om Dyakov Slavitskyi (President and Programme Director).

Tell us about some of the Cultural Hub’s past notable activities and exhibitions.

Our experience is displayed in a large project portfolio of 20 years in social entrepreneurship, community building for professionals, cultural management and research. In 2009, the public Improvisators Movement “Jazz For Streets” was founded. Then Jazz Jam Sessions, 9UniquePeople, 24hoursMagazine, Contact Improvisation School, Improvisators Magazine, I Coworking Hub, I Business Incubator, I Cultural Hub, U Open University, and Junior Open University provided space and opportunities for creative communities.’

‘These programmes and hundreds of projects shaped a long journey to the Cultural Business Education Hub NGO. Since 2019 several independent cultural architects have joined forces to focus on philosophy, social sciences, sociocultural anthropology research. So, for now Cultural Hub is an independent think tank, dialogue platform and digital media.

The archive you launch bears witness to the present in a different way than the recent flood of urgent news. Why is it important to collect, preserve, and disseminate such texts and insights? What processes are involved?

Bohm Dialogue is a freely flowing group conversation in which participants attempt to reach a common understanding, experience everyone’s point of view fully, equally and nonjudgmentally.

Cultural Hub members take this conversation format for regular meetings with top thinkers to explore communication and to practise intercultural dialogue. This leads to a new and deeper connection. The purpose is to solve the communication crises that society, and indeed the whole human nature and consciousness faces. Bohm Dialogue utilises a theoretical comprehension of the way thoughts relate to universal reality. It is named after physicist David Bohm who originally proposed this form of dialogue.

Some practitioners have made contributions and adaptations completely unforeseen by Bohm himself, making the subject of ‘Bohm Dialogue’ much greater than the dialogue theory Bohm originally established, which, Don Factor believes, would have delighted him if he were still alive. ‘Wars.Ukrainians.Humanity’ is the key programme of our editorial team. It is a collection of essays created by Ukrainian writers, illustrators and translators during this war against rashism. They revive and share Ukrainian 1500-years philosophy tradition through modern voices.

Can you tell us further about your programmes and projects?

‘The Philosophical Garden’ podcast and ironically-illustrated long-reads represent frank conversations with thinkers, philosophers, directors, artists, founders of creative industries companies and civil society organisations, literary critics, actors, curators and international CEOs. In ‘1st Season — Ukrainian Cultural Code —’, we had dialogues about motivation to make an impact on the Ukrainian creative economy, discussed what distinguishes an artist from a business person, or what do they have in common, what language do art people speak with business people.

The main topic for ‘Season II — War. Values against Evil —’ evolves from a philosopher and economist Lene Rachel Andersen saying: “A general problem that we face as humans is that we do not solve the problems we have; we solve the problems we understand. In order to solve more problems and create better solutions, we need to understand more of the world. In fact, we need to understand the world in different ways; ways that are unfamiliar to us today. We have to push and expand our understanding of the world so that it matches the world we ourselves are creating.”

Sociocultural anthropologist and the ‘Philosophical Garden’ author Demyan Om: “Ukraine is the centre where the strings are stretched from… Many peoples, countries are being transformed through Ukraine, with Ukrainians. Right now. And how will we be able to do it after the war? So that it lasts infinitely?”

The research group working in Ukrainian and English dialogue branches, with Ukrainian authors,  processes thousands of materials — testimonies and reflections of this war. This is how the repository, or well-structured ‘Media Library’ is being formed. It includes two parts. The first part is for closed use; it contains 12000+ digital materials on servers, only for Cultural Hub’s think tank members and partners, for social science research and analysis in the distant future. Most of our programmes are realised as joint initiatives creating lasting ties with a variety of educational and cultural institutions, including universities, research centres, archives, libraries, museums, galleries, and non-governmental organisations in Kyiv, across Ukraine, and internationally.The second part is public, with literary sketches/flash essays in English and Ukrainian being represented on culturalhub.org and Medium.com blog.

Tell us about something that inspires you or gives you hope.

We are inspired by Ukrainians uniting to a community of communities, with common Bravery, Dignity, Responsibility, and Humour — all for Freedoms, all for Values, all for Sophia (Wisdom). Daily philosophical practice gives us strength during our activities so far.

Granted: €30,000