DCI starts off Ukraine activities with “Direct Approach” Project
Direct Approach project in Ukraine
Danish Cultural Institute has invited the Danish artist Stine Marie Jacobsen to create a workshop in Ukraine with her anti-violence project “Direct Approach” together with social partners in the Ukrainian city Mariupol, close to the eastern frontline.
As a first step, Stine Marie Jacobsen in the beginning of March traveled to Mariupol, together with Project Consultant Yuliya Zakolyabina from DCI in Riga, to meet partners and find project crew for the workshop, that is planned to happen during April.
Victim, perpetrator or bystander? It is not easy to locate the notion of violence in any culture. There is actually no direct way to approach it.
Violence is often taboo or part of the collective unconscious in a given culture. The experience and judgment of different forms and mechanisms of violence is in other words a sensitive subject to map out.
Violence among vulnerable groups
Violence exists at multiple levels of society, remaining often invisible and unspoken. In recent years, the number of violent acts in Ukraine has raised due to the activities in the conflict area in the eastern part of the country.
Propaganda and so-called info warfare raised the hatred among young people, vulnerable groups as, for example, internally displaced people and minorities (i.e. recent cases of burning the Roma people settlements).
In September 2018 one of the main cultural venues in Mariupol “Platforma Tyu!” was attacked by the radical right-wing young people which broke in during the LGBT-friendly concert, injured people (musicians, the audience and NGO members), destroyed furniture and musical instruments. This issue was silented by the local administration and is still under the investigation process.
Therefore, DCI see a need to open the public discussion around the notion of violence, and in Mariupol in particular as the city, which is only 20 km away from the frontline.
Read about DCI’s preparatory trips to Ukraine
Direct Approach: A method on how to talk about violence
The Danish artist Stine Marie Jacobsen created a participatory art project “The Direct Approach”, which is also a practical working method on how to talk about violence and, through memories of violent scenes in film, creatively, theoretically and practically work with the themes surrounding it.
What is the most violent film scene you have ever watched? The project asks people globally to retell the most violent film scene, they have ever seen. Eventually when the person has explained about the scene, the project asks the person to choose a role in the scene – victim, perpetrator or bystander – and to explain how they would have reacted if the scene had been real.
The process of creating this project is just as important as the result. What the participants recollect throughout the process of trying the Direct Approach method is an access to the way, media images (here of violence) are stored in our individual and collective memory. How these influence us and our ways of identifying with people and acting in reality.
The participation in the project often has a great impact on the participants. They can participate anonymously, exploring their relation to violence indirectly, through fiction.
Inspire to continuing conversations
Aim is to make audience more sensitive towards, what can be considered as violent to different people in Ukraine today. The Direct Approach participants demonstrate how the method works and inspire other educators to create similar conversations on violence with their students.
Direct Approach detects and discusses different views on violence and investigates how participants position themselves within a violent film scene. After the participants’ approval, the posters and film material will be shown in public display and distributed to suitable institutions in Ukraine.
The Direct Approach project in Ukraine is supported by the Danish Embassy in Kyiv and the Ministry of Culture in Denmark.
Photos: The Direct Approach Project.