Main > Exhibitions > The Days of Democracy
Freedom is a crazy bet - to act as if we were free. Look at the war in Ukraine. Most of us simply expected the Ukrainians to be quickly defeated. Of course, we had sympathy, but we thought that Russia was a brutal force that would break Ukraine. And Ukraine defended itself in an insane way. Her behavior in this sense was an act of freedom - we knew that Russia was stronger, but we acted as if a miracle was possible.
Slavoj Žižek
La meg kjenne deg, du som kjenner meg! La meg kjenne deg, likesom jeg er kjent!
Du som er kraften for min sjel, kom inn i den og gjør den i stand for deg, så du kan ha
den og eie den uten plett og rynke. Det er mitt håp; derfor taler jeg. Og i dette håpet
gleder jeg meg så ofte min glede er sann. Med andre ting her i verden har det seg så
at jo mer en gråter over dem, dess mindre grunn er det til å gråte …
The basis of European democracy is the philosophy of Blessed Augustine. In his treatise, he wrote: that civil authorities who do not care about justice are no different from a gang of robbers. In the absence of justice, what is a state but big bands of robbers?
Unfortunately, we see this today in the example of the Russian government every day. Now I understand how right Augustine was in this statement and not only in this.
Twenty years ago I made a project “About the Memory”. This project was based on the tenth chapter of the treatise “Confession” by Augustine.
This fifty-five minutes video art was shown on three Kharkiv TV channels simultaneously. The audience did not understand what was happening and was surprised. This project was really provocative, because the first association for many people was that some political leader had died. In the Soviet Union, after the death of the General Secretary, strange program like this were shown on TV.
The show was made as part of the Cultural Hero project, curated by Marat Gelman. Indeed, one could say that by showing this video he buried the totalitarian system, at least for himself. I made a cultural gesture with the maximum degree of freedom and as publicly as possible. The audience was about half a million people.
I understood: Art is a gesture of self-expression of the individual. The freedom of self-expression of the personality depends on the inner freedom of the author. Society is capable of either resisting the artist or supporting him in his quest for self-expression.
The democratic basis of society gives the artist an open platform for creativity, doesn't it?
A Totalitarian regime kills any freedom. Especially freedom of creativity in the first place. Destroying the cultural code of a free society, a free individual, the totalitarian aggressor seeks to destroy, first of all, a person as a person. Today, such aggression is taking place in Ukraine. This war is aggression against all mankind.
Every day, the Russian army fires rockets and salvo fire at Kharkiv, all over Ukraine from the occupied territory and from Russia itself. Today, Putin's totalitarian regime seeks to destroy the cultural code of Ukrainians. Seek to erase our country from the map of Europe, destroy our people.
But despite this, the Ukrainians continue to fight. Unfortunately, I think many in Europe do not realize what for we are fighting right now. To put it simply, we are fighting for our freedom, for our right to live as we understand it, and for our country and culture. And in a more global sense, we are fighting for democratic values, the path of European integration, for individual freedom.
The Front of Democratic Europe is now taking place in Ukraine, and your help is incredibly important for us. Every day!
This could be the end of my manifesto, but it seems important to me to say a few more words. Namely, to tell you who we are and why we cannot be defeated.
Ten years ago, my first film, Firecrosser, directed by Mikhail Ilyenko, hit the cinema screens. Which then formulated the slogan of Ukrainian cinema: We. For us. About us! At the time, he was 100% correct.
Today I think it's more correct to say this: We. For you. About us! Our cinema will help you understand us better.
For example, a documentary film about children living in the Donbas "Terykony," directed by Taras Tomenko. The film premiered in Berlin, at the Berlinale five days before Russia's invasion in Ukraine.
In ten years I have made fifteen full-length feature films as a producer and five films as a production designer.
I would like to bring to your attention another film "Chervony. Escape from the Stalinist Camp”, directed by Zaza Buadze. This film tells the story of the struggle for an independent Ukraine since the time of the USSR.
Perhaps it is worth organizing screenings of Ukrainian films in schools and institutes so that Norway can better understand Ukraine. Understanding is the key to long-term and fruitful cooperation.
Your help to the Ukrainians is colossal, I'm sure you need to understand who you are helping and why it is necessary. Necessary for us all Europeans.
We talked about assistance to Ukraine in August at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo. The Art for Ukraine group organized a charity auction in support of the Kyiv Art Biennale, in support of Ukrainian artists who have remained and now live and work in Ukraine.
Lena Heggelund and I took part in this charity auction. We could not stay away from the preservation of Ukrainian culture. I am extremely grateful to Lena, as it was she who invited me to Norway, and thanks to her private initiative I am here. I am sure that this is the democratic choice of each individual.
I have been to Norway before, my first visit to Kjøllefjord, Finnmark was twenty years ago. On that visit, I made the project “Action that lost its meaning”, it was a huge square of ice created in the central square, without any purpose. It just melted for five days and disappeared. And then that was enough for me. But today the meaning of this project has changed for me.
I showed this project as a video document at the Nobel Center and said: Help to Ukraine should not melt like this ice!
The artist today cannot stand aside, he must speak through his work about the war and the protection of democratic values, even by rethinking his previous projects, because we are beginning to understand a lot in what was previously created only now. Only now freedom of speech acquires an incredible value that must be protected and preserved.
An amazing example of such a rethinking for me was Kazimir Malevich’s painting “White Suprematist Cross” created in 1920 and “Black Cross” in 1923. A hundred years have passed and today the “white cross” has become a symbol of the liberation of Ukraine. This is how Ukrainian military equipment is marked in the counter-offensive. It is the black cross that will put an end to the Russian occupation in 2023. I'm sure of it!
In conclusion, I would like to present to you another old project of mine, created in 1987 in the city of Sevastopol. A large white stripe that denies the artificial in art divides the space into a left and a right border. But where is the left? Where is the right!? From which side to look? As an author or as a viewer? This project was prophetic, it predicted the division of Crimea, but soon, I am sure, Crimea will be ours. Crimea is Ukraine! And I will make a new project - unity!
Today we need to speak up every day. Democracy gives us such an opportunity. It is our right to speak, and certainly our duty. Together - we are the force.
Volodymyr Filippov