„Ukraine speaks: On the ruins of an empire” – a debate

Saturday, the 27th of May, 12.00 – 1.30 p.m., the Big Stage of Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw, with Polish-Ukrainian translation.

➤ moderator: Edwin Bendyk 

➤ participants: 
– Yuriy Biley – visual artist and curator 
– Nikita Kadan (online) – painter, visual artist
– Svitlana Oleshko – director, screenwriter, director of the Arabesky Theater in Kharkov
– Wlada Ralko – artist, recipient of the Women In Arts award.

This meeting is co-organized with Batory Foundation.

Activists were trying to convince everyone that the empire died on the 24th of February 2022, at Galeria Labirynt (Labyrinth Gallery) in Lublin during the opening of a new exhibition, presenting Ukrainian art during the war. The Russian invasion was supposed to finally solve the “Ukrainian matter”, however, it finally pushed Ukrainian society and culture out of the shadow of the Empire, against the intentions of the aggressor. The autonomy and original distinctiveness of this culture were finally noticed throughout the world.

The war changed everything, the uncompromising confrontation with death suspended the false equality of truth and lies, revealed the meaning of courage and accelerated the process of great social change. Through their courage, Ukrainians have shown that they are free people. The future is the main stake of this transformation, because the future opens only to the free, as Wozniak concluded his speech. If Wozniak is right, culture is the key to understanding the wartime transition and the future. So how do people of art, intellectuals, and Ukrainian culture talk and think about the world and the future?