As we reach our penultimate episode for the series, we turn to a practitioner whose work before and during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has persevered in promoting culture as a form of national resilience.
Agatha Gorski is the co-founder of the Shadows Project, a Kyiv-based NGO that protects and decolonises Ukrainian culture. Our conversation explored her inspiration towards culture as a political interaction and how the work of the Shadows Project first began.
From here, we explore why Russia has taken such an interest in attacking Ukrainian culture and why it’s important that museums do not settle for describing Ukrainian artists as “Ukrainian-born”. This helps us to assess how culture works to generate national resilience by creating focal points for community and shared interests.
We end our conversation looking to parallels in the UK in Wales and what Brits today could learn for making a healthy approach to patriotism.
Be sure to explore the work of the Shadows Project here as well as Agatha’s profile here. Listen to the full conversation here.