Despite the image of the industry, which constantly needs to prove its usefulness and effectiveness, Ukrainian cultural institutions quickly mobilized and offered their help in a disaster situation. The second iteration of the Workshop of Cultural Practitioners, entitled Mapping Experience, aims to help participants collect and reflect on the institutional work experiences of the first eight months of the war and is already gaining momentum!
In September 2022, the Workshop of Cultural Practitioners launched an open call, and based on its results, twenty cultural practitioners were selected from among almost 50 questionnaires, who began their training already in October.
The Workshop invited cultural actors to analyze the form in which we can put the difficult experience of war so that it can help others and help us grow; how to reorient in an environment that has also changed or is changing and to reassess the opportunities and value of partnerships; understand the needs of your new audiences and how to interact with them; to see and formulate new goals and tasks that culture is currently facing: (self) decolonization, de-occupation, overcoming trauma); and also to strategically look to the future with optimism.
To date, several modules have already taken place, and a total of 7 two-day face-to-face modules are planned from October to December on the UCU campus. Among this year’s participants are museum workers from the Franko House, the Museum of Folk Life and Architecture named after Sheptytskyi and the Territory of Terror Museum, choreographers, employees of the Stary Lev Publishing House, managers of the Puppet Theater and the Slovo i Golos theater, independent cultural players. The geography of the participants ranges from Lviv and Vinnytsia to Bakhmut and Kherson. This year’s Workshop is held in cooperation with the Department of Cultural Studies of UCU and Cultural Strategy Institute with the support of ZMIN Foundation.
Lectures and seminars will be conducted by lecturers of the Department of Cultural Studies of UCU: Zoryana Rybchynska, Yulia Pivtorak, Oksana Daschakivska, Iryna Starovoyt, as well as specialists and colleagues of CSI, who also teach at UCU, Maria Kravchenko and Maryana Kuzemska.