Tandem Ukraine 2014-15

I am the Director  and the founder of Beat Carnival, which was started 21 years ago. It was the time when Belfast was still a very divided city, there were a lot of troubles including conflict and violence on the streets. So I wanted to do something that was very different: something positive and creative and it was important for me that artists would do something on the street, not just in  a gallery. We are not trying to be like Caribbean Carnival or Brazilian Carnival, but the idea of "carnival" celebration on the streets is an important thing for us – when normally, people gathering on the streets means that there will be confrontation and trouble.
 
The interesting connection between our two organisations is the idea of making art in a conflict situation and art that can transform a divisive conflict situation to something creative, shared and hopeful.
 
Our project is to look at visual images of cultural identity, how people express their sense of identity and their sense of belonging to the place. So when we get together we will collect different visual images from the past and then we want to have artists from both countries working on new ideas and images. In Ukraine, the plan is to go to Mariupol and do some paintings and art works there together with artists from Belfast.

My organisation has been working on the territory of exinsulation material factory in Donetsk. Unfortunately, in 2014 the territory of the factory was seized by DNR terrorists, that’s why we had to move to Kyiv and to continue our work from there. But we are still working in the Eastern Ukraine, especially with cities which are close to the war zone.

The main goal of this project for me is to learn how David and his colleagues from Beat Carnival made all the sides of the conflict come to peace through art and integrated both sides of the community into one.

I think it will be important project for IZOLYATSIYA because we are still planning lots to do in the Eastern Ukraine, where society is strongly divided and our aim is to make people come together, make them think critically, without any political hinting.

I am an architect and urbanist interested in participatory city initiatives and revitalisation of former industrial areas. I have been working in CANactions organisation for 4 years. It's an educational platform and a place for sharing ideas about city development. From 2012, our main approach in different research and educational projects is an interdisciplinary approach.

Tandem is a great opportunity to come closer to cultural managers and specialist interested in city development process. As for myself, this programme is a great experience as a cultural manager and a fantastic laboratory for creating my dream social project as well. It is called "Map me happy" and it is an innovative platform which helps to diversify public spaces in cities.

But this project is not the only one I've been working on. I am also involved in "Transformers project", organised by another Tandem: Communa ASBL and Cultural Dialog. Thanks to this collaboration I got to know a lot about the transformation of cities through cultural events.

I’m a geographer and a social entrepreneur. I live in Nijmegen, Netherlands. I participate in Tandem with my organisation European Geography Association (EGEA), which is a vast network of young active geographers. Together with our great new partner CANactions we are developing a new innovative initiative.

The aim of "Map Me Happy" is to improve and diversify public spaces by finding out what it is that makes some places better than others. We ask you – fellow urbanites – to share your positive experience with public places and tell us "What creative activities can you do only there?" and "Can you suggest ways for exporting these positive features to other places?". Our application and the map will give you a great opportunity to explore and experience your own city through your fellow urbanites’ eyes (community sharing) and share your opinion for improving your own city (community planning).

Would I have embarked on this journey without Tandem? For sure not! Tandem is foremost an idea laboratory and I owe a very great deal of my current set of ideas to Tandem and to people I met here.