An evening with The European Pavilion

The European Pavilion is an initiative by the European Cultural Foundation that supports and promotes artistic projects which encourage critical thinking and radical imagination, and fuel bold perspectives on Europe and our common future. Addressing the issue of democracy in Europe, and with Ukraine in our minds and hearts, this programme presents two of the projects developed as part of The European Pavilion.

Following a series of workshops and the international conference it organised in Ljubljana on 9-11 March 2022, the confederation of L’Internationale is launching the Democracy Pavilion for Europe Online: a platform that encourages ongoing and open debate and the recognition of art and museums as tools for experimentation and critical analysis of cultural and political Europe.

An open online platform, the antiwarcoalition.art is an initiative of six Belorussian artists and curators who call on artists from all around the world to contribute with their works against war and dehumanization, and express solidarity with those in Ukraine who are affected by military aggression, colonial, patriarchal, imperialistic, and political repression, and those resisting terror.

Charles Essche (director of the van Abbe Museum, Netherlands and co-curator of The Democracy Pavilion), and Antonina Stebur & Maxim Tyminko (respectively curator and artist, both co-initiators of antiwarcoalition.art) will introduce their initiatives, while reflecting together on questions such as: What does democracy mean in these current, dark times? How can we both seek to defend the limited space for thought and action that we still have and push for a new sense of the good life and care of the planet we share?

The discussion will be followed by the screening of the documentary film Judges Under Pressure by Polish director Kacper Lisowski. Presented in collaboration with IDFA, the film follows the Polish judge Igor Tuleya, the face of the protest movement against the PiS government, as he works both inside and outside the courtroom. His black humor brings an occasional note of lightness to this urgent and shocking topic, without detracting from the seriousness of the constitutional horror scenario unfolding in this EU member state.