Il'ja Yakovenko is an artist engaged in participative art who lives in Kyiv and is active in the city's cultural sector.
He is primarily interested in the arts as they relate to social issues and community involvement in artistic production with a social component. Thanks to the international mobility grant, Ilya joined the German PapierTiger project and told us what discoveries and challenges he faced in a small town in the east of Germany.
How did you find out about the project?
In 2014, in became acquainted with the German theatre arts group Ongoing project during my studies in Lebanon. Their work addresses social issues, involving local communities in their art projects. When I became aware of the opportunity to apply for a Culture Bridges grant I wrote to them inquiring what they were involved with and whether it might be relevant to my own interests. That's how I learned about the PapierTiger project taking place in a small town of Homberg, population around 15,000, located in eastern Germany. A part of Ongoing project, they were working with local teenagers, school teachers and residents to prepare an audio walk drawn from the Brecht play. They developed the script and recorded an audio tour mixing in individual and collective memoir and discussion of the pivotal year 1968 – the student protest movement, the Red Army faction, the sexual revolution. They also leased a square at the centre of town, holding weekly events open to all residents, and inviting them to propose and produce their own events. There was only one requirement: the proposed event had to comply with the project's overall theme.
This city, and particularly this school, are a conceptual choice – the place where the educator Thomas Schattner works to this day. He had written a book about the events in Homberg in 1968. It was here that the Homberg Antischool (Gegenschule) operated: a school that conducted educational seminars for students and advocated for the inclusion of sexual education in the curriculum.
What did you do in Homberg?
I spent two weeks in Homberg, joining the PapierTiger project for its final stage: I held several workshops in English for teens which they could then integrate into an audio walking tour. I do not know German well so I couldn't fully participate in the development of the audio-guide but functioned like a cultural diplomat. Workshops included my presentations, group discussions about working with public space, and physical rehearsals in public space; we were looking for the best places to simulate the recorded audio. We also discussed the events of 1968 and personal relations with parents, since the view is out there that at that time the young, post-war generation was rebelling against their conservative parents and their view of morality and ethics, all of which led to political division. I shared my memories of my teenage experience in eastern Ukraine during the 1990s and talked about the current socio-political situation in the country.
In the final week I travelled to Leipzig, where the post-production session was already taking place. We worked on a publication that included materials I had collected during my workshops, evaluated project results, worked out a concept for the next international project and did some urban research and met with potential partners. We chose Leipzig because of its post-GDR ("East Germany") context, and the preponderance of concrete slab housing projects built there. The Grünau district stands as one of the largest concrete slab projects in Germany and, likely, Europe.
Why the expectations were not met and how did you adapt?
As we discussed their relationship with their parents, I was surprised to learn that teens in Homberg have face a completely different range of challenges. Most noted that they had happy family lives and could discuss a lot of issues that in Ukrainian families we try to exclude from the dialogue. Sexuality, as one example. On the advice of my colleagues, I set the task for the children to talk with their parents, asking about the relationship they had with their own parents during adolescence. One young man even wrote out an entire interview that the group tried to work out with an eye on the context of the past and by comparison with the current situation in Ukraine. These school students also recorded some advice for their Ukrainian peers, and these then were reproduced in our publication as slogans. I can state that my expectations and what I imagined life to be like for German teens differed completely from the reality I encountered.
One of the greatest challenges was having is to rethink my expectations and quickly adapt the materials and ideas I had prepared for my workshops to the reality that I encountered. What I originally believed would resonate with the students and engage them in active discussion weren't going to work because of the difference in our contexts. But with the help of my German colleagues and mentors we managed to find some points of contact that led to active interaction.
I had also planned to do something independent with the students but engaged as they were creating an audio walking tour, we just didn't have enough time.
Homberg has at its centre some old log homes of classical German architectural style. But the inconvenience of these buildings resulted in residents leaving for other places and more spacious private homes. This gives rise to a certain dissonance between the attractive picture of "the old town" pictured on post cards and the understanding that these old buildings are functionally inconvenient and quite unappealing.
How is social-oriented art developed in Germany?
In this region, the project was part of a systemic effort. The Flux organisation operates there with regional budget funding. It sponsors similar projects in this part of the federation every year or two. One funding requirement applied in small towns is that the work as to involve the local community in cultural projects. Organisations that offer financial support for social-oriented art are all over Germany. In general, at the state level there are lots of organizations that encourage cultural initiatives and socially engaging artistic activity. They understand the importance of dialogue and the need for reflexion on the processes at work in society.
Creative industries projects in Germany
Kampnagel Internationale Kulturfabrik
Based in Hamburg, specializes in the performing arts that address complex political issues.
This is an educational and self-organizational platform directed at refugees and those waiting for official refugee status. It is based in Hamburg and Mullheim, though the project works beyond Germany also.
BA Studierhaus Lausitzer Seenland
is an example of a multidimensional transformation of the entire post-industrial region of the country, both landscape and cultural infrastructure.
What is your next project?
I have a bit of experience with how small artistic organisations and groups in Germany work, the challenges they face, and how government institutions work with socially-engaged artistic projects. Certainly, their practice is still difficult to apply in Ukraine given the situation in the administration of the cultural sector, but it can be a good starting point for change. I also learned how to approach discussions of complex historical and political issues that incite heightened social reactions.
I would like to work with the Ongoing project on the issue of Ukrainian societal transformation and the so-called de-communism process, particularly how it went in eastern Ukraine. It would be interesting to investigate how to include various points of view in the process of forming a modern narrative on the definition of Ukrainian society and its possible direction. Addressing the recent past is important but also difficult; learning to work effectively with these topics takes effort.
We've been working on an idea of a new international cooperation project between Germany and Ukraine that touches on the Soviet past shared by our countries, and examines especially at historical heritage – the monuments, architecture and monumental art of that period. We've written out the concept, have met with potential partners in Leipzig, have developed a project schedule and an implementation plan. The planning process is currently on hold, but I plan to travel to Germany to discuss possibilities for further cooperation.
Media sources for cultural workers to follow
An online platform and a magazine that offers critical analysis of cultural policy, industry and publishing run by the European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies.
The European Cultural Foundation
An organization that advocates for democracy and a united Europe using cultural means. It provides opportunities, grants, and publishes regularly.
The cultural mobility information network with regular distribution of grants, residences, etc.
Photo credits: Ongoing project
