Culture of Solidarity Fund grantee Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden present online programme ‘Decoloniality in Ukraine’
23 Nov 2022
December 1 2022, 15.00 CET
Our Culture of Solidarity Fund Eunic Ukraine grantee Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden hosts the online panel discussion ‘Decoloniality in Ukraine: Is there still a place for a ‘soviet soldier’ in historic memory?’
The title of the discussion refers to the explosion of the Monument to the “Soldiers of law and order” that happened in the centre of Mykolayiv on October 19, 2022. This case brings to the fore the question of dealing with an uncomfortable past, unspoken pages of history, practices of exclusion and strategies of negation. In this context the figure of a soldier becomes a metaphor for thinking about the Soviet as such in historic memory of the country which is trying to rapidly realize the process of decolonization.
Decolonization seems to become an urgent agenda of this year that at the same time makes us reflect and figure out the terminology itself, if and in which way we can imply this terminology in the context of Ukraine? How and if we are capable of starting this process in the hot phase of the war and Russian invasion in Ukraine? Is it possible to avoid the practices of exclusion and stigmatization when we deal with the uncomfortable past?
The discussion addresses the possibilities of building a conversation about the uncomfortable past notwithstanding the resistance to the oppressor. It questions what artists, researchers, and cultural practitioners can do in terms of building complex, multi-layered and non-linear narratives? In the situation of the overdue talk about decoloniality, the discussion proposes to think of possibilities of keeping the complexity of a narrative without losing the own subjective voice.
Speakers: Yevgenia Belorusets, Mischa Gabowitsch, Nikita Kadan, Valentinas Klimašauskas, Doreen Mende (SKD), Moderator: Tatiana Kochubinska.
Read more on the website of Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.
