Resources for Teaching, Learning and Action for "The Clear Blue Skies: Diaries from Ukraine" and "FREEDOM - FEAR - FREEDOM: Art of Transformation in Times of War and Conflict"
Compiled by Toni Shapiro-Phim
(updated in July 2024)
Art And War Beyond Ukraine
“[A]rtists faced with different kinds of ‘wars’ have long sought to interfere directly in them… Such work mobilises several modalities at once, passing quickly from the aesthetic register to ethical questioning, to a political or legal position. It inscribes itself not just in a project of intervention and defiance, but in a historical undertaking.”
Teaching about Ukraine
The New York Times, The Learning Network, March 2, 2023
"A collection of ideas grounded in Times resources to help students reflect on a year of war, consider its causes and effects, and ponder what's next," including audio, visual and written materials, and an overall lesson plan that can be adapted to particular contexts.
Indiana University School of Education
Links to articles, lectures and books (fiction and nonfiction) about Ukrainian history as well as the current conflict, news coverage, lesson plans and a section on "How to Help."
Ukrainian Art and Cultural Heritage
March 29, 2023
“The fundamental work of cultural decolonization, initiated by the Ukrainian art world and its representatives in recent years and accelerated since the all-out invasion of 2022, helps open our eyes to the aggressive cultural annexation carried out in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. It also shows us how little most of us know of Ukrainian history and culture—and points the way for other oppressed peoples across the globe to initiate similar changes.”
June 20, 2024
“In the third year of this epochal war — which has destroyed some 210,000 buildings, according to a recent New York Times investigation — Russian forces continue to target civilian habitations in contravention of international law. When the city is a battleground, architecture becomes an act of defense and defiance.
There’s a high-spirited, highly welcome exhibition right now in New York that maps Russia’s attacks against Ukraine as also a war against the built environment, and the manners in which architects, designers and ad hoc collectives are fighting back in brick and mortar.”
June 5, 2024
“Faced with Russia’s efforts to erase Ukrainian culture, people have embraced traditional music as a way to reconnect with their past and affirm their identity.”
Richard Kurin, Smithsonian Magazine, Feb. 22, 2023
"The Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative and its partners are aiding in the fight to protect the country's history and to document attempts to erase it."
Anya von Bremzen, The Guardian, July 17, 2023
(30-minute podcast recording)
"The soup of my childhood, borsch, has become emblematic of Putin's assault on Ukrainian land, culture and heritage, of his drive to plunder and obliterate Ukraine."
Joanna Kakississ, National Public Radio, June 30, 2022
"The human rights organization Amnesty International says Russia committed a war crime by bombing a theater where hundreds of civilians were sheltering during the March siege of Mariupol, the southern Ukrainian port city that Russian troops destroyed and now occupy."
Al Jazeera
"Video posted on both Ukrainian and Russian websites on Friday showed heavy equipment taking down much of the theatre while leaving its front façade intact… Ukrainian officials denounced the demolition as a bid to cover up the deaths in the March 16 bombardment and wipe out Ukrainian culture."
Eugénie Fortier, The Frick Collection, Aug. 15, 2022
"In celebration of Ukrainian art, this reading list examines how Ukrainian artists have explored their home country's history and culture through time."
Victoria Amelina, The Guardian, July 6, 2023
"Before she was killed by a Russian missile strike, the acclaimed novelist and war crimes researcher wrote about growing up in Moscow's shadow, and how she came to understand what being Ukrainian really meant."
Charlotte Higgins, The Guardian, July 14, 2023
"An archive holding works by writers purged in the 1930s also hosted [writer and documenter of war crimes] Victoria Amelina, lost to a Russian strike this summer."
Lorenzo Tondo, The Guardian, April 23, 2022
"More than 200 years after Francisco Goya commemorated Spanish resistance to Napoleon's armies in The Third of May 1808, his groundbreaking work on the horrors of war, Ukrainian painters, illustrators and cartoonists are trying to find an artistic expression as Russian bombs fall on their country."
Lisa Korneichuk, Hyperallergic, Jan. 17, 2023
"No one would call an artist from India 'British' or an artist from Peru 'Spanish,' so why do museums continue to label Ukrainian artists as 'Russian'?"
Dmitry Troyanovsky, The Theatre Times, Nov. 11, 2022
In this essay, theater professor and director Dmitry Troyanovsky "shares his experiences and observations of German theatre's response to the political changes in these 'impressionist notes.' Here, Dmitry reflects on theatre, his connection to Ukraine [where he was born], and his first-hand experience with Ukrainian refugees."
Review: The Journal of Dramaturgy, Dmitry Troyanovsky and Dan Smith, Winter 2022
"Though we may feel disempowered in the face of geopolitical chaos, American theatre makers should redouble our efforts to engage with one of the most consequential events of our lifetime. It is within our power to draw attention to the war by educating American audiences about the tragedy unfolding in Ukraine. We can express solidarity with Ukrainian people by sharing Ukrainian culture and by offering assistance to Ukrainian refugees in our communities. We can join our global colleagues in a theatrical conversation about war and world threats to freedom and democracy."
Produced by Brandeis University's Program in Peacebuilding and the Arts in the months right after the start of the war, this newsletter includes articles by Dr. Katja Kolcio on the cultural and historical contexts of Ukraine in the face of Russia's invasions of 2014 and 2022, a conversation with curator and dancer Larissa Babij, as well as links to articles and websites with information and stories about Ukrainian artists and arts, other artists' responses to this crisis, related upcoming (at the time) performances and presentations, and education and action.
Displacement: Internal and Across Borders
April 15, 2024
“For Ukraine’s entry in this year’s Venice Biennale, two artists asked refugees to help them create an ‘acceptable’ portrait of a woman ravaged by war. We meet the team behind an astonishing project.”
Matt Schiavenza, HIAS, Feb. 21, 2023
"Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine sparked one of the largest geopolitical crises in years, an era-defining event whose consequences have reverberated across the globe. While officials in world capitals debated the war's implications, many of Ukraine's 43 million citizens found their lives irreparably upended. More than eight million Ukrainians have fled to other countries. Just under six million more… are internally displaced."
NAACP Press Statement, Feb. 28, 2022
"The NAACP is disheartened with the events surrounding the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. In these crisis moments choosing citizenship over humanity is an atrocity. Right now in Ukraine, Black families, immigrants from the African diaspora and other people of color — mothers, children, and students are not only facing challenges to evacuate a deadly warzone but are being pushed from trains and beaten by police officers."
Khanyi Mlaba, Global Citizen, Dec. 19, 2022
"They were discriminated against when they left war-torn Ukraine. Now they face other hurdles."
Patrice McMahon, The Conversation, March 2, 2023
"More than 8 million Ukrainian refugees have entered Poland since Russia's February 2022 invasion. About 1.5 million of them have remained in the central European country rather than moving on to other places or returning home amid Europe's biggest refugee crisis since World War II."
Ukraine’s Children
June 2, 2024
“The New York Times traced how a web of officials and politicians aligned with President Vladimir V. Putin’s party carried out a campaign to permanently transfer Ukrainian children from Kherson.”
Hanna Arhirova, AP News, May 26, 2023
"Russia's full-scale invasion has subjected [Ukrainian children] to constant bombardment, uprooted millions from their homes and turned many into orphans. Hundreds of kids have been killed. For the survivors, the wide-ranging trauma is certain to leave psychological scars that will follow them into adolescence and adulthood."
Lisa O’Carroll, The Guardian, July 3, 2023
"Centre to investigate 'unspeakable horrors' such as sexual violence, child kidnapping and civilian displacement in Ukraine."
NBC News (video), September 16, 2023
“NBC News’ Molly Hunter shares the experience of a mother who traveled 3,000 miles to reunite with her 12-year-old son after eight months apart and the story of a Ukrainian NGO organizing rescue missions to bring more kids home.”
Peter Beaumont, The Guardian, May 30, 2023
(27-minute podcast recording)
"How did tens of thousands of Ukrainian children end up in Russian re-education camps?"
Ed Vulliamy, The Guardian, March 18, 2023
"Thousands have been taken to Russia for 'adoption' or 're-education,' but the international community is seeking justice."
Peter Beaumont and Pjotr Sauer, The Guardian, May 30, 2023
"Olga Guruli was heading to occupied Kherson province to arrange repatriation of boy and his brother."
Peter Beaumont, The Guardian, May 29, 2023
"The stories told to Svitlana Popova's 15-year-old daughter, Alina, while she lived under Russian occupation in Ukraine's southern Kherson province, were designed to terrify her. Yvgenia, the pro-Russian mother of Alina's best friend, spun her a web of lies."
Veronika Melkozerova, Politico, June 10, 2023
"More than 19,000 kids have been deported to Russia. Their parents are trying to bring them back, one child at a time."
1A, National Public Radio, April 24, 2023
(30-minute recording)
"The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for the unlawful transfer of children out of Ukraine."
Georgetown University's Collaborative on Global Children's Issues. July, 2023
During the webinar, participants examined the current situation, provided historical context and discussed the response. Ukrainian organizations engaged in the frontline response shared their perspectives, and participants considered how the international community can support family tracing and reunification. This event was, in part, an outgrowth of the performance of The Clear Blue Skies in Washington, D.C.
Cultural Genocide
June 3, 2024
An interactive map sharing results of research that “compared images taken in every part of Ukraine before the war to images taken during the war – about 50 terabytes of imagery in total.” “Even if the war ends tomorrow, in many places there will be nothing to go back to.”
Veronica Roseborough, The Hill, June 2, 2023
"Two weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the Ukrainian city of Kherson one of 'four new regions of Russia,' satellite photographs captured two Russian trucks hauling away roughly 10,000 artifacts from the Kherson Regional Art Museum."
Tjorben Studt, Volkerrechtsblog, Feb. 15, 2023
"Since the Russian invasion, both the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Federal Prosecutor's Office of Germany have started an investigation into events in Ukraine that are relevant under international criminal law. The primary aim of these investigations is to gather as much evidence as possible (without identifying specific suspects at this stage) in order to be able to conduct criminal proceedings against specific suspects, if the necessary evidence is corroborated."
Peggy McInerny, UCLA Center for European and Russian Studies, Jan. 6, 2023
A report on the December 2022 symposium, "War on Culture/War on Memory: Ukraine, Bosnia and the Global Defense of Heritage," held at the Getty Center in Los Angeles.
Opportunities for Additional Learning and Action
"On Feb. 24 at 5 a.m., Russia launched an unprovoked military attack on Ukraine. People all around the country woke up to air raid sirens and bomb explosions. Their lives changed forever. In the following days, Russia deliberately bombed hospitals, kindergartens, densely populated residential areas. Russian troops are ruining the civilian infrastructure, and people are cut off from sources of food and water. Many people are left homeless and forced to flee the country. In this difficult time, we launched Ukraine Forward to supply life-saving resources to people in Ukraine."
Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University
The Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute is "dedicated to the support of scholarship and the dissemination of knowledge about Ukraine and its neighboring countries of Eastern Europe. These are difficult times for the Institute, for the broader community of scholars and students in the field of Ukrainian studies, and, first and foremost, for the people of Ukraine. In February 2022, Ukrainians found themselves under an unprovoked, full-scale attack by Vladimir Putin's Russia. Under these circumstances, when interest in Ukraine, its history, its language, and its culture has grown exponentially, and the need for reliable information, academic integrity and sound judgment have become more important than ever before, we are doing everything we can to produce and disseminate what the authors of the Harvard mission call 'good knowledge' to inform and educate communities at Harvard and beyond. In this regard, we have relied and continue to rely on your understanding, participation and support."
Ukrainian Emergency Performing Arts Fund
"War, terror and genocide of Russia in Ukraine is a global challenge shaping our common future at this very moment. In this situation performing artists and art-managers that are staying are helping with any possible means way here in Ukraine through art practices, culture and social initiatives as well volunteering directing their resources on recovery of the most affected by war groups of people. We are defending our freedom, sovereignty of our country, while standing for the global peace, dealing with the terror of Russia on Ukrainian soil preventing it from spreading to the rest of the world. We feel the global wave of solidarity from the international community, and we are strongly structurally relying on your help in this critical situation, for what we are beyond grateful."
"To deal with the consequences of the Russian invasion and threats the war poses on the Ukrainian art community — (MOCA) Museum of Contemporary Art NGO, in partnership with Zaborona, The Naked Room and Mystetskyi Arsenal established the Ukrainian Emergency Art Fund... Money raised from your kind donations will be allocated transparently between the UNDERSTRUCTURES initiative’s urgent needs... and strategic activities of the UEAF to keep supporting the cultural heritage sector of Kherson/South of Ukraine."
Art Shield
"Theatre is a vibrant part of Ukrainian culture. War has rendered this communal experience even more vital. [Theatre buildings have been destroyed in the war; artistic ensembles have been decimated.] From purchasing generators to stepping in to help theatres fund new productions, Art Shield is currently working with the following Ukrainian theatres: Kyiv National Academic Molodyy Theatre; Lesya Ukrainka National Academic Theatre; Ivan Franko Drama Theatre; Dnipro Academic Drama & Comedy Theatre; Mykola Kulish Theatre (Kherson); Suzir'ya Theatre; Kyiv Independent Theatre; Mariia & Magdalyna (independent musical theatre)." ALSO, Art Shield is producing a documentary film, Intermission, about "actresses and actors who have enlisted in the Ukrainian army as they struggle to keep their passion alive amidst the horrors of war. What happens when artists go to war? How do actors find the will to connect to their passion in the face of destruction? How differently do war-torn audiences connect to the communal experience of Theatre?"
"With your help, we provide psychological and psychosocial support to children who suffered as a result of war operations. We also help families to cope with everyday difficulties, treatment and rehabilitation of children... "
HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society)
"HIAS is providing emergency humanitarian assistance in Ukraine, Poland, Moldova and Romania in order to assist Ukrainian refugees and those who have been internally displaced within Ukraine. This work is particularly focused on addressing protection gaps for vulnerable populations, including women and girls, LGBTQ individuals, people with disabilities and non-Ukrainian asylum seekers and stateless people."
IRC (International Rescue Committee)
"Ending violence against civilians is one of the most important steps to help Ukrainians rebuild their lives. World leaders must ensure that international humanitarian law is upheld and that humanitarian actors are protected and maintain access to help those in need... The world must also continue to support both the people who fled Ukraine and the millions of refugees and displaced people worldwide... The IRC is continuing to scale up its response efforts in Ukraine, Poland, Moldova and other parts of Europe to meet the evolving needs of displaced families. This includes:
- Delivering multipurpose cash support to ensure families can cover their most basic needs;
- Distributing essential winter items such as blankets, sleeping bags and heaters to keep people warm;
- Providing essential protection services, including Safe Healing and Learning Spaces for children, gender-based violence services and women’s centers, and legal assistance for people whose homes have been damaged by air strikes;
- Providing information on rights and legal support.
We are assisting Ukrainian refugees in Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia and Bulgaria, as well as in Germany, Italy, Greece and the UK. We are also supporting resettled families in the U.S."