Art, cultural diplomacy and Europe: Festival-makers gather in Yerevan

Artikel oorspronkelijk gepubliceerd door Vlad Makszimov voor EURACTIV.com op 14 september 2022. (https://www.euractiv.com/section/all/news/art-cultural-diplomacy-and-europe-festival-makers-gather-in-yerevan)

As Russian aggression in Ukraine continues, and renewed clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan stoke fears of another active conflict in Europe’s East, the continent’s festival-makers met in Yerevan to talk about the power of art and its cultural diplomatic potential.

“We are together to listen and talk in the next few days about the arts, about the artists, about the need for dialogue, about audiences, about cities. About Europe in the world,” European Festivals Association (EFA) President Jan Briers said in his welcome speech at the opening of the almost week-long Arts Festivals Summit in the Armenian capital.

Celebrating the 70th anniversary of the EFA’s founding, itself created in the aftermath of Europe’s most devastating war to date, the organisation representing Europe’s festival-makers presented its vision for the coming years, while proclaiming solidarity with victims of violence.

“Without transgressing from our remit, we feel obliged to state our solidarity with the victims of war to express our firm belief in the sovereignty and dignity of all people, to endorse the need to de-colonise the last empire and hear the voices of the oppressed,” reads the preface for the ‘Menu for Action under continual construction’, the association’s fluid blueprint for action “70-Years-On”.

Committing to the “catalytic potential of festivals”, the cultural event organisers posited that “few festivals are politically engaged. Yet inherently each festival is based on specific values that may carry a political message: being apolitical is also a political standpoint.”

“What seemed to be a thing of the past, is back: we live again in a divided continent… Festivals should help to overcome the continental rift with everything at their disposal,” the document adds.

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the EFA took an unprecedented step of cutting off their Russian members, as “a message towards the regime”, Briers told EURACTIV. “We close the frontiers for Russian publicity.”

“Like he uses sport to promote himself and his country, he does the same with culture,” Briers said, pointing to the fact that the welcome words of the program book of the Sochi Festival showcases are by Russian President Vladimir Putin, accompanied by his picture.

At the same time, Briers stressed that the EFA embraces members outside the European Union, including Lebanese, Iraqi, Irani and Turkish festivals.

“The fact that we are here in Armenia is because every two years we want to go to a country where it’s important that we support culture and the freedom of culture,” Briers said. “Also in the region where it’s difficult for the moment”, he adds.

The escalation of decades-old hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan on Tuesday (13 September) has fuelled fears that a second full-fledged war could break out in Europe’s neighbourhood in addition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Armenia is a member of the Moscow-led security pact, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), although Yerevan is dissatisfied with the lacklustre support of the Kremlin, which strives to maintain friendly relations with non-member Azerbaijan, and acts as a power broker in the South Caucasus region.

The uncomfortable reality of Europe’s contested identity and colonial present can be felt on the walk through the Russian-flag-lined Northern Avenue of Armenia’s capital to the Aram Khachaturian Concert Hall, the venue of the summit’s opening ceremony, accompanied by a concert by the country’s star violinist Sergey Khachatryan and the State Symphony Orchestra.

The discomfort caused by Moscow’s palpable presence in Yerevan is also felt by the summit participants, reflecting the difficult reality of cultural diplomacy.

Kateryna Lozenko, a Ukrainian musicologist and art manager of KharkivMusicFest, said she considered the risks when she took the flight to the Armenian capital.

“In general, the flag is not the worst thing I imagined [could] happen”, she told EURACTIV.

Yet, Lozenko stressed the importance of maintaining dialogue with her Armenian counterparts, in which she said she felt successful, despite the high level of Russian propaganda.

“And it is actually very important to make such contacts. Because obviously Armenia and Ukraine are not enemies of each other,” she told EURACTIV.

“The festival academy and festival-makers are now talking about decolonisation, which is actually a very important issue and is very topical not only for Ukraine, but also for Georgia and other countries that were part of the Soviet Union and whose national identities were being stifled,” she said.

This sentiment is also echoed by Anastasiia Yevsieieva, head of visual art at the Ukrainian Institute, a public organisation for cultural diplomacy affiliated with Ukraine’s ministry of foreign affairs.

“We want the key world museums and society to understand what Ukraine has to do with the decolonial issue,” she said, highlighting that her nation’s decolonisation needs to be put in the context of a country that has been living in a common informational space influenced by Russia with countries of the former Soviet Union.

“What was the impact of Russia? What was its influence and why we are trying to separate from that? It’s not a question of the latest 200 days or eight years, Ukraine had been colonised by Russia for a long time. What we see right now is the natural process of Ukrainian society that is trying to separate from this colonial approach, to have its own voice and its own platform to respond to the situation,” she said.