Opening: Saturday, 20 November 2021 | 17.00 – 21.00
Opening hours: 20.11.-28.10.21 daily from 12.00 to 19.00 – FREE ENTRY

On the 24th afternoon and 25th-26th all day the exhibition will not be accessible to visitors because the same venue will host the Third International Forum on Eastern Ukraine. Here more information about the event.

The exhibition “(NOT)War: realizing oneself and boundaries in ‘Donbas Diaries’ dialogues” is the result of a dialogue process between young people from Ukraine and from Russia. The dialogue was centered around the Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict in eastern Ukraine that started in 2014 and has continued since then. The conflict has impacted millions of people, causing deaths and injuries, mass displacement, the loss of homes, disruption of family and social ties.

The dialogue process lasted two years, in 2018-2020. At first, the participants met in their own country, and then traveled abroad twice – once, to meet in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and then in Vilnius (Lithuania). The participants of the dialogue process were sharing and reliving their experience of perceiving the armed conflict. Some of them saw the war with their own eyes, some felt its devastating

The ‘Donbas Diaries’ project team is looking forward to welcoming you at the exhibition!

At the last stage of the dialogue, the participants were joined by artists and designers. Together, they created art works to reflect their experience and feelings that arise from rethinking the war through communication and art. These sincere pieces of art, including posters, collages, a video and even embroidered night gowns will be presented at the exhibition in Berlin.

At the opening, you will meet dialogue facilitators who were leading the whole process, a participant from Ukraine who will share her experience and emotional impact of being involved in this project, as well as the artists who helped young persons to transform their experience into art. Also, we will invite you to join the discussion about the possibilities to use dialogue and art as tools for de-escalation of a situation and transformation of conflicts.

The opening will take place under 2G-rule (participants must be fully vaccinated against or fully recovered from a previous infection with COVID-19) and will be organized in line with the COVID-19-related rules and restrictions. Simultaneous interpretation will be provided (English – Russian – Ukrainian).

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The dialogue process as well as its artistic component took place within the project ‘Donbas Diaries’ of the international civil society platform CivilMPlus which unites over 20 independent civil society organizations from Ukraine, Russia and the EU. The project was coordinated by the Ukrainian NGO ‘The Country of Free People’. The name of the coordinating organization from Russia is not disclosed due to security concerns.

The dialogue process, as well as the exhibition were organized with the financial support of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany.
The content of the art works or any other materials and opinions presented at the exhibition do not necessarily reflect the position of all member-organizations of the CivilMPlus and of the German Federal Foreign Office.