HERITAGE AND MEMORY
with Marci Shore
The seminar “Living in Truth II: Family, Memory and Responsibility” addressed difficult questions surrounding inherited memory and responsibility between generations. The participants discussed whether or not we can be held responsible for a past we have not created ourselves, beginning with the story of Martin Pollack and his confrontation with his family’s Nazi past.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF GUILT
with Viktoras Bachmetjevas
The philosophical seminar led by Bachmetjevas focused on guilt, responsibility and judgement. Is guilt always individual? How can societies confront histories of violence without diluting personal responsibility by subsuming it into collective guilt?
POETRY AS RESISTANCE
with Monika Herceg
During the workshop “The Poetry of Responsibility, Rebellion and Solidarity I,” the participants analysed poems by famous female poets without knowing their names. Through close reading, they identified thewords that particularly resonated with them, and used these words as starting points to create their own poetry.
The session quickly took on a deeply personal character, and the participants’ spontaneous contributions were often remarkably moving and mature. In this way, a shared space for creating poetry emerged — filled with energy, grief, empathy, resistance, struggle and a sense of fulfilment.
It was an experience that touched both the participants’ inner, personal worlds and the urgent dilemmas of the present day.
DILEMMA CINEMA
with Anna Eborn
The evening concluded with a screening of Anna Eborn’s remarkable documentary Transnistria, a film about friendship, intimacy and coming of age against the backdrop of a state that is not internationally recognised. The screening was followed by an engaging group discussion.
The fifth day was a powerful reminder that true freedom is inseparably connected with responsibility for the world around us.
( written by Olha Povoroznyk )