Ukraine’s cultural voice, when addressing the international community, has to be both louder and clearer than it has been in the past, according to Olesia Ostrovska-Liuta, the director general at Mystetskyi Arsenal, Ukraine’s foremost cultural and artistic institution.
“We really do not have thought-through tools for a Ukrainian voice to be present in the international conversation,” Ostrovska-Liuta told the Kyiv Post during the 5th annual Kyiv Post Tiger Conference on Nov. 29.
Neither there is a connected narrative, a set of connected messages that Ukraine could be voicing out, she said.
She noted some progress in the government’s work, particularly the efforts of the Culture Ministry and the Foreign Ministry, which successfully represented Ukraine at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany, and which are currently preparing for the Venice Biennale in Italy in the spring of 2017. However, she said Ukrainian authorities lack understanding of how to properly finance culture.
Ostrovska-Liuta complimented the public sector, which she said showed a high level of cultural exchange. As an example, she pointed to the modern Ukrainian poet and writer Serhiy Zhadan, an article about whom was recently published in the New Yorker Magazine.
“That happened due to the efforts of Zhadan himself, and, of course, of the person who wrote about him,” she said.
She said the state should be financing “those who are capable,” such as the Publisher’s Forum, which can communicate with members of the foreign literary community, Mystetskyi Arsenal, or the National Art Museum of Ukraine.
“If financed at home, they will find an opportunity to work abroad – this is part of their everyday activities,” Ostrovska-Liuta said, adding that quality in culture automatically implies international exposure. “I can hardly imagine a film producer who wouldn’t want to show his films at the A-class festivals.”
She also said that Ukraine should trim financing to the host of folk culture projects it supports now, and to give more support to contemporary culture.
“On the international stage, we have to join in international topics. Our voice has to talk about things that interest people in different countries. We can’t only talk about our local issues because we will remain difficult to understand for the rest of the world,” she said.
At the same time, Ostrovska-Liuta stressed that Ukrainians should be honest, show their wounds and traumas, and share their understanding of the current events, including the war in Ukraine’s east, through culture.
“But we need to know the same language. In Germany, Ukrainian language is considered a minor language, in terms of publishing,” she said, explaining that there are not many books translated from Ukrainian, and there are very few translators from Ukrainian into German. “Why there are not many of them? Because who has to support them? We need to produce them somehow.”
Ostrovska-Liuta said that Ukraine should provide scholarships for foreigners, so that they can study in Ukraine, and later promote its culture abroad.
“We have to do these things, so that this country becomes something more than just a territory in the east, where something dramatic always happens, but nobody cares,” she said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Alyona Zhuk can be reached at [email protected]
