Ukraine needs European imagination and shared action. We need a European Cultural Deal for Ukraine. Art, culture, and shared cultural heritage are under threat and we need urgent emergency actions– like the extraordinary action of Museum for Ukraine, initiated by Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza –but also actions which prepare the future of Ukraine and help to imagine how to rebuild Ukraine. We believe in the fundamental role of culture in resisting the human, humanitarian and geopolitical crisis, and in forging the Ukraine of the future. We urgently call on the EU to include Ukraine’s cultural and creative sectors in the EU’s relief package for Ukraine. We call on the EU institutions to join forces to include emergency needs from the worlds of art, culture and cultural heritage within the EU humanitarian support to Ukraine, and in Ukraine Reconstruction plans. This war is also a cultural war. It needs joint European cultural responses. European and national policy-makers, investors, creators need to ensure that arts and culture are fully part of the future Ukraine Trust Fund to facilitate public and private partnerships which respond to emergency needs and invest in the future. We need a Cultural Deal for Ukraine.
Greeting by Francesca Thyssen Bornemisza, founder of Museums for Ukraine initiative and of TBA21.
Video message by HRH Princess Laurentien of the Netherlands, President of the European Cultural Foundation (ECF).
Panel 1: In the Eye of the Storm is an exhibition project which proposes a critical review of the Ukrainian history of art during the first decades of the twentieth century in an attempt to recover the history of modernism in this country and return it into the context of the development of both the national culture of Ukraine and the European art of the first half of the twentieth century.
Confirmed speakers:
Katia Denysova, Curator of the exhibition
Olena Kashuba-Volvach, Curator of the exhibition, Curator of the National Art Museum of Ukraine (Kyiv)
Irina Drobot, Director of the Museum of Theatre, Music and Cinema of Ukraine (Kyiv)
Olena Honcharuk, Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre (Kyiv)
Moderated by: Konstantin Akinsha, Curator of the exhibition, art historian
Panel 2: Culture in Times of War – European solidarity with Ukraine. A high-level policy conversation on the need to stand in solidarity with Ukraine and its artistic and cultural community. The panel will discuss the vital role of culture in shaping a sense of togetherness, a European sentiment, in times of crisis, recovery, and beyond. It will assess opportunities for showing cultural solidarity and offer pathways towards a Cultural Deal for Ukraine.
Confirmed speakers:
Pina Picierno, Vice President of European Parliament – by video message
Diego Mellado, (ambassador) Head of Communication and Public Policy, European External Action Service (EEAS)
Catherine Magnant, Deputy-Director and Head of Cultural Policy, European Commission
Yana Barinova, former Head of Culture at the City of Kiev, currently Head of European policies and Ukraine, Erste Stiftung (Vienna)
Alexander Shevchenko, Ukrainian urbanist, founder of Zvidsy Agency and the Restart Ukraine project (Kyiv)
Moderated by: Isabelle Schwarz, Head of Public Policy, European Cultural Foundation (Amsterdam)
Link: Panel 1: In the Eye of the Storm here
Link: Panel 2: Culture in Times of War – European solidarity with Ukraine here
Link: Download symposium speakers’ biographies here
Link: Download full program here
Link: Download Francesca Thyssen- Bornemisza’s statement here
