We stand with Ukraine!
From the editorial board of Arterritory.com
The Arterritory.com portal was created as a platform for cultural exchange not just between the Baltic countries. We have always taken great interest in our neighbours ‒ the Nordic countries and Poland. And Russia. We have published dozens of interviews with artists, curators and collectors from this country, as well as dozens of reviews and previews of contemporary art events in Russia. We have always strongly supported exchange of opinions, ideas and images, supported art that makes people human, makes them humane, free and open.
The political situation back in 2014 became a serious test for these links. This morning ‒ the Russian army’s attack on Ukraine, a war in Europe in the 21st century ‒ seems like a nightmarish dream we want to wake up from. Nevertheless, it is reality. And within this reality, we must act.
We want to declare our solidarity with Ukraine, our total rejection of aggression. That, under the current circumstances, cultural contacts of any kind with any official Russian institution are out of the question. At the same time, we understand that many artists, curators and art researchers in Russia have become hostages to the situation. The war is being waged contrary to their wishes.
The first outpourings of their reaction have appeared on the social networks. The Russian gallerist and our friend Sergei Popov writes: ‘The worst thing imaginable has happened. The idea I have always lived with and my generation has been brought up on is that war is the most horrific and most disgusting thing in the world. And now my country is acting as an aggressor. How could we end up like this?’ ‒ ‘Horror, shame and injustice,’ reads a post by Anton Belov, the director of the Garage museum of contemporary art in Moscow. ‘Three hours have gone by, and I still cannot believe that a full-blown war has started. It cannot be imagined or explained rationally. It is impossible to accept. I have been reading lots of political analysis during the last few weeks. The thing that happened this morning was impossible to imagine, even considering the spin that the Russian media put on the situation in Donbas. There is no single unambiguous emotion I could refer to when I want to describe my mental state. I see breaking news of explosions in Ukrainian cities. It is a long way from Donbas. And I find it impossible to make sense of how it could have happened,’ writes artist Evgeny Granilshchikov. ‘Good Lord, what a disgrace,’ says artist Pavel Otdelnov. ‘I categorically condemn the military aggression by the Russian Federation against the sovereign state of Ukraine. I see it as a war crime against the people of Ukraine and a crime against the people of Russia and the future of Russia, against our children whose job it will be to build a new free Russia all over again, from scratch ‒ I hope to God that not from ruins,’ writes director Anastasia Patlai.
We, too, believe that another Russia can emerge, one whose national idea is rooted not in power but in openness and generosity of its soul, in hospitality and a feel for the beauty of the world, in admiration for it. We are not going to leave isolated the people working in contemporary art who, in many ways despite the current Russian system, express their views and try to change the society for the better, showing a way to a more humane and dignified future.
Author - Una Laukmane
And yet our thoughts first and foremost are with the people of Ukraine right now. They are different people with different views and different backgrounds. But it is from their sky that missiles are falling, and on their land that people are dying. We stand with you, Ukrainians ‒ from the bottom of our heart. What is happening right now is a crime. And so it shall go down in the books of the 21st-century history that are yet to be written.
