Cultural Workers Against the Ongoing War in Ukraine

Open Letter

We, cultural workers in Berlin and other places, raise our voices to state that we stand strong and firm with Ukraine. We protest against the ongoing and escalating Putin-led Russian aggression against the people living in Ukraine.

Putin’s military invasion threatens millions of civilians, pensioners, care workers, children, and regular inhabitants. Russian aggression particularly targets the lives and health of political activists, the LGBTIQ+ community, cultural workers, journalists and other civilians as well as the exiled Belarusian opposition in Kyiv and in other Ukrainian cities. It targets us and our friends in order to destroy the tissue that keeps our communities connected and breathing.

Ukrainian territory has been violated by Russian aggression since the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. The country has been pulled into a defensive war by Russia’s incursion into Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions, under the cover of so-called local separatist movements, beginning in 2014.

In these territories disappearances, kidnapping, torture and imprisonment reportedly take place. In previous moments of political destabilisation, like the Euromaidan uprisings in 2014 in Kyiv, cases of kidnapping and torture of journalists and activists have been documented.

Whoever has experienced the effect of this kind of repression through intimidation, torture and fear on our societies, like the Belorussian and Russian oppositional movements, knows: There is no invasion which is negotiable. There is no legitimation for repression and invasion. There is no degree of repression we can silently witness without being complicit.

We call on all our fellow cultural workers to raise their voices, to stretch their political empathy, to activate their political courage, to refresh their political memory and to stand up in support of our colleagues, friends, allies, and their (chosen) families.

As we stand together we work towards forming even stronger bonds and deeper alliances with each other. Let us, cultural workers, stand together, to put our weight on public opinion: We demand decisive and firm support of the people living in Ukraine.

The Undersigned
February 2022

http://culturalworkersagainstwar.org/

    To sign please go to
    Change.org Signature List

    To contact us
    culturalworkersagainstwar@gmail.com

Signatures

Inga Zimprich, artist, Feminist Health Care Research Group
Sönke Hallmann, board member Flutgraben e.V.
Sergej Prokopkin
Thomas Kilpper
bbk Berlin
Kim Wichera, UDK Berlin, Weglaufhaus „Villa Stöckle“, INTAR, IDHA New York
Yane Calovski, artist and curator
Anna Zett, Künstlerin und Autorin
Suza Husse, District * SchoolWithoutCenter
The Many Headed Hydra, artist collective
Coven Berlin
Moira Zoitl, artist
Noel Rademacher, musician
Volodymyr Kuznetsov, artist, Ukraine
Zofia nierodzinska, curator
Dominique Hurth, artist, Berlin
Lesia Pcholka, artist, activist, Belarus
Volodymyr Kuznetsov, artist, Ukraine
Johann Wiede, writer, publisher, activist
Vanessa Gravenor, Research Associate, HFBK Hamburg
Viktoria Lyakh, freie Kunstwissenschaftlerin/Kuratorin, Berlin
Maria Berrios, curator
Julia Bonn, artist, Feminist Health Care Research Group
Paula Durinova, artistic director ACUD Galerie, Berlin
Karol Radziszewski, visual artist, Warsaw, Poland
Paul Georg, curator Ukrainian music label Standard Deviation
Richard Pettifer, Artistic Director Faki Festival, Zagreb, Croatia
Tijn van de Wijdeven, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Victoria Pidust
RA Walden, Berlin
Kornelia Kugler, filmmaker
Vera Kavaleuskaya, Curator, editor, Helsinki and Minsk
Babi Badalov
Ingela Johansson, artist, Stockholm
Couvet Patricia, curator Brussels/Berlin
Oleksandr Kaliberda, Ukrainian creative producer
Beate Absalon, PhD student at the Graduate Center for the Study of Culture, Justus-Liebig University Gießen, Germany
Franziska Böhmer
Yulia Krivich, visual artist, Academy of Arts in Szczecin, UA/PL
Jorge Esda
maria sarycheva
Elena Ishchenko, curator at Typography Center for Contemporary Art (Krasnodar, Russia)
Kateryna Vincent
Anastasiia Syradoieva
Natalia Tikhonova
Lysovenko Kateryna, Ukrainian artist based in Kyiv
Andrej Babenko
Irca Solza, artist and independent researcher, Siberia, Russia
Pavel Grazhdanskij, Moscow, Russia
Alicja Jelińska, Fundacja Artystów Kolonia Teraz, Gdańsk, Poland
Larissa Babij, Translator, Curator, Movement researcher, Kyiv
Lia Perromat – Perriez, Bordeaux
Lesia Vasylchenko
Gvidas Pakarklis, Illustrator, Printmaker
Kaja Kusztra
Natalya Stupka
Alisa Marchenko
Vera Ganzha, artist, graphic designer
Maria Patsyuk, artist, Moscow
Dora Vasilakou, curator/writer, Athens, Greece
Mikhail Tolmachev
Dzina Zhuk, artist, part of eeefff, Flying cooperation, Work Hard! Play Hard! working group
Nicolay Spesivtsev, artist, computer scientist, co-organizer of Work Hard! Play Hard!, Speculative Computer Club, eeefff
Rickard Aall, Oslo, NO
Natalia Sielewicz, Curator, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw
intc
Elisabeth Bauer
Viktor Pedersen
Daniel Falb, poet and philosopher, Berlin
Christian Bauer
Wojciech Puś, filmmaker, artist
Kristiana Lytviak
Grace Fielder, Kyiv, Mystetskyi Arsenal
Moritz Küstner
Catherine Arbassette, Bordeaux, France
Daria Prydybailo, independent curator, founder of NGO ART MATTERS UKRAINE
Michel Lacombe
Masha Maroz
María Linares, visual artist (COL/DE)
Sasha Zubritskaya, St. Petersburg, Russia
Yuliia Elyas, Utrecht, Netherlands
Vitaliy Matukhno
Misho Antadze, Film Director, Amsterdam
Stephan Kurr
Inga Lāce, curator, Riga
Ivan Isaev, curator, Moscow
Oleg Perkowsky, artist
Anton Shebetko, artist, photographer, Ukraine
Dariia Kuzmych, interdisciplinary artist, Berlin/Kyiv
Heidi Sill, bildende Künstlerin, Berlin
Mat Fink
Stacey de Voe
Renāte Lagzdina, Riga
Sophie Wright
Alicja Rogalska, artist
Olia Sosnovskaya, artist and scholar, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
An Laurence
Jakub Gawkowski, curator, Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź
Susanne Clausen
Pavlo Kerestey
Till Gathmann (artist and typographer)
Aykan Safoglu Berlin/Vienna
Vicki Thornton
Weronika Zalewska, artist, Poland
Clemens v. Wedemeyer, artist, Berlin
Zuzanna Wesołowska
Magdalena Morawik, independent curator
Daria Demia
Svitlana Libet, editor and language teacher
Magdalene Solli, Oslo
Sergey Shabohin, artist, curator, editor in chief
Ron Winkler
Sandra Becker
Zoë Claire Miller, artist
Julia Voloshyna
Max Voloshyn
Sergei Starkowski, Berlin
Marianna Dobkowska, art historian and curator, Warsaw
Karolina Grzywnowicz, artist, Berlin
Julia-Anna Simonchuk
Kai Hermann
Erdal Bilici, Artist
Oleksandr Halishchuk
Tanya Alipchikova, writer, Belarus
Marta Romankiv
Dominik Skrzypkowski
Fedor Kokorev, performance artist
Natalia Pichłacz, Bydgoszcz (Poland), Bydgoskie Centrum Sztuki
Daria Lytvynenko
Robbie Schweiger
Suzanna Zak
Ira Lupu
I-Wei Li, SideBySide Studio e.V.
Tamara Becerra Valdez, Chicago, IL USA
Martin Jankowski (poet and writer, Berlin)
Yana Verba
Teresa Leung
Emre Busse
Anna Litovskikh, art critic and curator of contemporary art archive, Ekaterinburg
Selina Wepf
Theresa Kampmeier, artist
Julia Rodowicz
Anthony Hüseyin
Karla Bauer
Andrea Ancira / Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien
Frauke Zabel Künstlerin/Kunstvermittlerin
Melanie Meystre
Joe Riley
Magdaléna Michlová, PLATO Ostrava
Tatiana Kochubinska, curator
Nikolay Alutin, curator, Amsterdam/Moscow
Anna Anufriieva
Wolfgang Obermair, Wien, Künstler
Eva Mattes
Michał Grzegorzek, art curator, Warsaw
ujjwal utkarsh, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna
Ebba Fransén Waldhör
Rina Rosenqvist
Anastasija Gubina
Alessandra Franetovich, Turin (Italy)
Thjerza Balaj
Ekaterina Rudaia, editor at the Center for Culture CC19, Novosibirsk, Russia
Najaaraq Vestbirk
Martyna Miller, DOMIE
Esben Weile Kjær, Copenhagen
Peter Sit – artist, curator, APART collective, Bratislava
Claudia Contu, London/Florence
Lizza May David, artist
Zeynep Barakat
Nicholas Grafia
Olivia Danielsson
Hedda Grevle Ottesen
Frederik Svanholm
Burcu Sahin
Flóra Gadó