General Public

The European Studies Council, the Program on Refugees, Forced Displacement, and Humanitarian Responses, and Mauro Mondello, World Fellow 2020; Reporter, Freelance Journalist present a screening of documentary shorts and a discussion addressing both the humanitarian crisis started in 2011 and the refugees in Europe during COVID-19.
Please register in advance for the zoom webinar link: https://yale.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_B06VVaf7SWa56Oc_q0DF9w
Stateless, by Mauro Mondello and Nunzio Gringery - 2011
Lampedusa in Berlin, by Mauro Mondello, cinematography by Paolo Lafratta - 2015
Among many other crises around the world, the European Refugees Crisis, which started in 2011 as a consequence of the Libyan and Syrian wars, is, still today, the most impactful for Europe. Namely, from security to economic or from political to geostrategic, its impacts on Europe are multifaceted. The migration dimension is, however, the most significant one. In addition to its crucial humanitarian extent, it is a source of dissent, contention and competition among the different EU Member States. Discussions around irregular migration have been threatening the solidarity and damaging the reputation of the EU. Together with the rapidly changing regional and global dynamics, the conditions of EU aspiring refugees/migrants has been worsening. Since the beginning of 2020, besides, COVID-19 and connected anti-migration policies of the EU Member States had severe impacts on the conditions of refugees/irregular migrants which are shadowed by the dazzling developments in other fields.
Mauro Mondello is a World Fellow 2020, a freelance reporter, war correspondent, documentary filmmaker and the co-founder of Yanez, an online long-form journalism magazine. Often focusing on human rights and freedoms, his reporting strives to garner dignity and respect for all cultures and religions and to foster an open society that provides shelter for refugees and space for all humanity. He began his journalism career as a staff journalist in Italy and was based in South America between 2008 and 2011. He then moved to Tunis to report on the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt. From 2013 to 2019, he was based in Berlin, Germany. Mauro’s current work reports on a variety of issues, including refugees, migration, human rights, EU foreign policy, civil movements, mafia and Italian criminality, nuclear waste and climate change. His documentaries include “Lampedusa in Berlin,” a report about the eviction of migrants in Berlin, filmed in 2015.

The EU Studies Program along with Hamish Falconer, World Fellow 2020, present a panel of experts to discuss “Can Britain Have a Grand Strategy after Brexit” Featuring the following speakers:
Ben Judah is a foreign policy writer based in New York, with his current research focus on the foreign and economic policy of both post-Brexit Britain and a potential future Biden-Harris Administration.
Georgina is a senior researcher at the Institute for Government where she focuses on Global Britain, Franco-British relations and the future of the EU. She is also a Visiting Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
Hamish Falconer is a former member of Britain’s foreign service and a current World Fellow
Moderated by: Professor David Cameron, Professor of Political Science
Please register in advance for the zoom webinar link:
https://yale.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_IhtlPqXtQ_-CuPYqEFaEFQ

3D Virtual Art Exhibition
Curated by Dr. Aniko Szucs, Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Yale University
Featuring the following feminist artists/activists:
Rufina Bazlova
Andi GV
Alevtyna Kakhidze
Cecylia Malik
Masha Svyatogor
To view the 3D virtual exhibit: https://artspaces.kunstmatrix.com/en/exhibition/2306160/visual-acts-of-r…
For easiest viewing-enter fullscreen and click on start guided tour.

Introduction of Exhibition

“In a political situation in which care is both exceptionally necessary and exceptionally underprovided,” writes artivist Harry Josephine Giles, “acts of care begin to look politically radical. To care is to act against the grain of the social and economic orthodoxy: to advocate care is… to advocate a kind of political rupture.” In Central and Eastern Europe, authoritarian regimes and illiberal democracies have been aggressively suppressing solidarity, curiosity, and tolerance by silencing and disenfranchising artists, expelling NGO organizations, and debilitating social movements. Taking a stand against such oppressive trends by building allyship amongst ethnically, racially, religiously varied communities has indeed become an act of “radical care.”

With the global state of populist and nationalist governments taking control, advocacy work and practicing care has become an ethical commitment. Radical care demands that activists, artists, and scholars rethink the conditions of equality, togetherness, and diversity. Radical care proposes mutual recognition and mutual aid; it envisions alternative forms of solidarity and acts of sharing.

The artists presented in this exhibition perform acts of radical care in at least three different ways: by bringing to fore invisible experiences and existences, by becoming protectors instead of protestors, and by daring to expose the radical ruptures in society. Hungarian photographer, Andi GV and Ukrainian visual artist Alevtina Kakhidze both redraw—Andi GV through photography and Kakhidze with pencil and ink—the contours and shades of those who live in liminal geopolitical spaces, dehumanized and unrecognized by the nation states and international organizations. The artworks of Polish artist and artivist Cecylia Malik and the Belarusian artist Masha Svyatogor demonstrate how performances of radical care may transform the position of the activist: protestors, through their affective advocacy work, become protectors of ecological, racial ethnic, labor, and human rights causes. Lastly, this exhibition also proposes that certain protest actions may constitute acts of radical care. By subverting the Belarusian folk embroidery tradition and Poland’s most sacred religious icon in their artivist works, Rufina Bazlova and Polish LGBTQ activists, respectively, turn well-known nationalistic and religious tropes into sites of rupture. In these images the conflicting ideologies are visualized, and—within the utopia of the artworks—perhaps are also reconciled.

Each of these artists succeed in accomplishing the ultimate goal of radical care: they build communities and inspire them to envision new social realities. Through their works, the organizers of this conference and the curators of this exhibition invite you to do the same.

3D Virtual Art Exhibition
Curated by Dr. Aniko Szucs, Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Yale University
Featuring the following feminist artists/activists:
Rufina Bazlova
Andi GV
Alevtyna Kakhidze
Cecylia Malik
Masha Svyatogor
To view the 3D virtual exhibit: https://artspaces.kunstmatrix.com/en/exhibition/2306160/visual-acts-of-r…
For easiest viewing-enter fullscreen and click on start guided tour.

Introduction of Exhibition

“In a political situation in which care is both exceptionally necessary and exceptionally underprovided,” writes artivist Harry Josephine Giles, “acts of care begin to look politically radical. To care is to act against the grain of the social and economic orthodoxy: to advocate care is… to advocate a kind of political rupture.” In Central and Eastern Europe, authoritarian regimes and illiberal democracies have been aggressively suppressing solidarity, curiosity, and tolerance by silencing and disenfranchising artists, expelling NGO organizations, and debilitating social movements. Taking a stand against such oppressive trends by building allyship amongst ethnically, racially, religiously varied communities has indeed become an act of “radical care.”

With the global state of populist and nationalist governments taking control, advocacy work and practicing care has become an ethical commitment. Radical care demands that activists, artists, and scholars rethink the conditions of equality, togetherness, and diversity. Radical care proposes mutual recognition and mutual aid; it envisions alternative forms of solidarity and acts of sharing.

The artists presented in this exhibition perform acts of radical care in at least three different ways: by bringing to fore invisible experiences and existences, by becoming protectors instead of protestors, and by daring to expose the radical ruptures in society. Hungarian photographer, Andi GV and Ukrainian visual artist Alevtina Kakhidze both redraw—Andi GV through photography and Kakhidze with pencil and ink—the contours and shades of those who live in liminal geopolitical spaces, dehumanized and unrecognized by the nation states and international organizations. The artworks of Polish artist and artivist Cecylia Malik and the Belarusian artist Masha Svyatogor demonstrate how performances of radical care may transform the position of the activist: protestors, through their affective advocacy work, become protectors of ecological, racial ethnic, labor, and human rights causes. Lastly, this exhibition also proposes that certain protest actions may constitute acts of radical care. By subverting the Belarusian folk embroidery tradition and Poland’s most sacred religious icon in their artivist works, Rufina Bazlova and Polish LGBTQ activists, respectively, turn well-known nationalistic and religious tropes into sites of rupture. In these images the conflicting ideologies are visualized, and—within the utopia of the artworks—perhaps are also reconciled.

Each of these artists succeed in accomplishing the ultimate goal of radical care: they build communities and inspire them to envision new social realities. Through their works, the organizers of this conference and the curators of this exhibition invite you to do the same.

3D Virtual Art Exhibition
Curated by Dr. Aniko Szucs, Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Yale University
Featuring the following feminist artists/activists:
Rufina Bazlova
Andi GV
Alevtyna Kakhidze
Cecylia Malik
Masha Svyatogor
To view the 3D virtual exhibit: https://artspaces.kunstmatrix.com/en/exhibition/2306160/visual-acts-of-r…
For easiest viewing-enter fullscreen and click on start guided tour.

Introduction of Exhibition

“In a political situation in which care is both exceptionally necessary and exceptionally underprovided,” writes artivist Harry Josephine Giles, “acts of care begin to look politically radical. To care is to act against the grain of the social and economic orthodoxy: to advocate care is… to advocate a kind of political rupture.” In Central and Eastern Europe, authoritarian regimes and illiberal democracies have been aggressively suppressing solidarity, curiosity, and tolerance by silencing and disenfranchising artists, expelling NGO organizations, and debilitating social movements. Taking a stand against such oppressive trends by building allyship amongst ethnically, racially, religiously varied communities has indeed become an act of “radical care.”

With the global state of populist and nationalist governments taking control, advocacy work and practicing care has become an ethical commitment. Radical care demands that activists, artists, and scholars rethink the conditions of equality, togetherness, and diversity. Radical care proposes mutual recognition and mutual aid; it envisions alternative forms of solidarity and acts of sharing.

The artists presented in this exhibition perform acts of radical care in at least three different ways: by bringing to fore invisible experiences and existences, by becoming protectors instead of protestors, and by daring to expose the radical ruptures in society. Hungarian photographer, Andi GV and Ukrainian visual artist Alevtina Kakhidze both redraw—Andi GV through photography and Kakhidze with pencil and ink—the contours and shades of those who live in liminal geopolitical spaces, dehumanized and unrecognized by the nation states and international organizations. The artworks of Polish artist and artivist Cecylia Malik and the Belarusian artist Masha Svyatogor demonstrate how performances of radical care may transform the position of the activist: protestors, through their affective advocacy work, become protectors of ecological, racial ethnic, labor, and human rights causes. Lastly, this exhibition also proposes that certain protest actions may constitute acts of radical care. By subverting the Belarusian folk embroidery tradition and Poland’s most sacred religious icon in their artivist works, Rufina Bazlova and Polish LGBTQ activists, respectively, turn well-known nationalistic and religious tropes into sites of rupture. In these images the conflicting ideologies are visualized, and—within the utopia of the artworks—perhaps are also reconciled.

Each of these artists succeed in accomplishing the ultimate goal of radical care: they build communities and inspire them to envision new social realities. Through their works, the organizers of this conference and the curators of this exhibition invite you to do the same.