TRIBUNE – A collective of artists, directors and elected officials are calling for support and dissemination of the works of Ukrainian creators. Some of which will be present at the Avignon Festival, which opens on June 29.
Published on June 28, 2024 at 12:00 p.m.
War on European soil. The war, hour after hour, for the Ukrainians. The war, still fierce and deadly, 2,000 kilometers from Avignon, where one of the biggest theater festivals begins. The war, however, is moving away, as the horror of the stories reported from the front is lost in our collective weariness, so regrettable and so human, encouraged by untimely media zapping. It has already been almost a thousand days since it burst into our daily lives. The first days with a bang, leaving no room for anything else, overwhelming our hearts and minds. In recent months, it has almost normalized, while other skies have darkened.
Informing about Ukraine today is of course sharing the daily life of war, the struggle
soldiers, the twists and turns of international diplomacy. But these tactical considerations and
strategic, necessary, annihilate emotions and put the consequences into perspective
tragic, human, of what is happening in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Mariupol, Odessa and elsewhere. Faced with this, it seems more essential than ever to us to make heard voices capable of testifying to the daily lives of residents, their hopes, their fear. Voices from Ukraine speaking about Ukraine.
We must therefore encourage them to go and meet their European neighbors, to continue practicing of course, but above all to show a little of their daily life.
Who better than Ukrainian artists to tell the horror of a country at war? Who better than them to touch the heart of every European? Despite extremely precarious creative conditions; despite venues being targeted; despite prevented meetings with spectators; despite lives in danger, it is up to artists in Ukraine to confront us with this reality, with the tragedies that occur as well as with the courage that triumphs, with humanity that resists, with hope that is reborn.
We must therefore encourage them to go and meet their European neighbors, to continue practicing of course, but above all to show a little of their daily life. Because the very survival of Ukrainian culture is at stake, we must welcome the beating hearts of these artists to the “battle”.
This reflection of Ukrainian society must be seen and listened to in every place where it is found.
is scheduled: this is the case in a few days at the La Manufacture theater in Avignon. You have to go there, because it is important in its cultural commitments to support the Ukrainian cause, culture is then more than ever a political commitment. But also because the young Ukrainian creative scene is inspired, inventive, talented, anchored in European humanist values. It strongly carries a vision of the future.
Yesterday at the Cannes Film Festival. Today in Avignon, where the Pavilion of the Future offers a panorama of young Ukrainian creation. And tomorrow in Paris, Angoulême or Bourges, to make the Ukraine of arts and freedom heard and seen.
The petitioners :
David Bobée, director of the Théâtre du Nord-CDN
Andrei Kurkov, writer
Mohamed El Khatib, author, director
Boris Vedel, general director of Printemps de Bourges
Cécile Helle, mayor of Avignon
Natalya Guzenko Boudier, Director of the Ukrainian Institute in France
Yann Galut, Mayor of Bourges
Jean Varela, director of the Spring of Comedians in Montpellier
Paula Mota Garcia, Director of Évora 2027 European Capital of Culture
Piia Rantala-Korhonen, Director of Oulu 2026 European Capital of Culture
Pascal Keizer, Commissioner General Bourges 2028, European Capital of Culture
Pierre Thys, general director of the National Theatre Wallonia-Brussels
François Quintin, director of the Lambert Collection, in Avignon
Hanru Hou, art critic, exhibition curator
Olivier Atlan, director of the Bourges Cultural Center
Patrick Penot, director of the Sens Interdits festival in Lyon
Frédéric Poty, Ukrainian Pavilion, La Manufacture
Luba Yakymtchouk, poet, screenwriter
Constantin Sigov, director of the Center for European Studies at the National University-Mohyla Academy of Kyiv, head of the publishing house Duh i Litera
Oleh Sentsov, director, knight of the Legion of Honor
Pavlo Matyusha, criminal
Iryna Slavinska, journalist, translator, literary critic, executive producer of Radio Kultura
Artem Chapeye, writer
Oksana Zaboujko, writer, knight of the Legion of Honor
Vlad Troitskyi, theatre actor, director, playwright
Olga Kurovska, co-author of the « Journal d’Olga et Sasha »
Sasha Kurovska, co-author of the « Journal d’Olga et Sasha »
Haska Shyyan, writer
Iryna Tsilyk, director, poet, screenwriter
Iryna Dmytrychyn, historian, lecturer at Inalco, president of the Ukrainian Institute in France
Kateryna Pryimak, vice-president of the Association of Women Veterans of Ukraine
Maksym Nakonechnyi, director, producer
Volodymyr Sheiko, Director General of the Ukrainian Institute
