Ukraine/ 3.4 International cultural co-operation  

3.4.2 Public actors and cultural diplomacy

In recent years, responsibility for international cultural collaboration has been distributed on the central level mainly between the following agencies:

• Ministry of Culture (cultural organisations and events, arts and cultural education, exchanges, heritage, diaspora, minorities, cultural values, international collaboration and intercultural dialogue);
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs (promotion and international relations; coordination of international multilateral programmes);
• State Committee on Information Policy, TV and Radio Broadcasting (media, TV, books, advertisement); and
• Ministry of Education and Science, Youth and Sport (student culture and education, youth culture, intercultural dialogue, sport).

The Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine is responsible for tourist exchanges and tourist routes. The Ministry of Regional Development, Building and Housing is empowered to develop international cultural collaboration on the regional level. At the same time, regional or local authorities can develop international collaboration independently or with support from central governmental agencies e.g. organising artistic tours, festivals, conferences, etc.

International cultural agencies and institutes play a very important role in the Ukraine, by developing cultural dialogue and supporting Ukrainian artists through different projects. Besides artistic events (e.g. concerts, exhibitions, master classes, film weeks), the British Council, Goethe Institute, Swedish Institute, French Cultural Centre, European Cultural Foundation and the Polish Institute support translations into Ukrainian, publish bulletins and manuals, and organise arts management training courses.

In 2012, the European Cultural Foundation, jointly with the Centre for Cultural Management (Lviv) and the Development Centre "Democracy through Culture" (Kyiv), continued working with several Ukrainian cities (NGOs and local administrations) in special activities related to mapping of cultural and creative resources. Two special workshops were held in Donetsk and Odessa, as well as a set of consultative and coaching courses in different cities. Local teams realised surveys and analyses involving diverse players and stakeholders. Their reports (maps) could be an important basis for formulating and discussing future strategies on local, regional and national level.   

The Borderland Foundation (Poland) jointly with Summer school

The Borderland Foundation (Sejny, Poland) together with Belarusian Collegium (Minsk, Belarus), Arts Research Centre of Ilia State University (Tbilisi, Georgia), and the Development Centre "Democracy through Culture" (Kyiv, Ukraine) organised, in July 2012, the Summer School of Dialogue for cultural administrators, cultural animators, managers of cultural organisations, leaders of NGO's experienced in a cultural and managerial work, cultural journalists (communicators), artists interested in project developments, and cultural researchers. The basic intention of the Summer School of Dialogue was education of the animators of dialogue in the region of the Caucasus and Central Asia, Belarus, Ukraine and Poland, supporting long-term artistic and educational ventures in multicultural communities, assistance for the creation of centres for intercultural practices and cooperation in the building of a trans-regional network of partnership in intercultural dialogue in Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine and Poland.

From 31 August to 8 September 2012, the city of Lviv hosted its first contemporary art biennial "Week of Contemporary Art". Organised by the association Dzyga Art and with the support of the Rinat Akhmetov foundation, this event was entitled "Uncertainty". The event brought together installations, objects, multimedia presentations, performances, classes, lectures, roundtables, debates, and several Master classes. Artists and exhibition curators came from several countries: Ukraine, Poland, Ireland, France, Israel, the United Kingdom, Lithuania, Canada, Venezuela, and the United States (for more details see AMA Newsletter, #64, 2012). 

The first international festival of contemporary sculpture, the Kyiv Sculpture Project (KSP), organised by the Spilna Meta foundation was held from 2 June until 2 July 2012. During the festival guests had the opportunity to visit two parallel projects: the display of works by the finalists of the contemporary sculpture contest from several countries – Australia, Russia, Poland, the Netherlands, Ukraine, and the UK – and, in the Special Project, sculptures by eminent artists of the XX-XXI century, exhibiting in Ukraine for the first time. The partner of the Kyiv Sculpture Project 2012 was the largest Sculpture Park in Europe, Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

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