Living Through and Speaking About the War: INDEX at the LAMPA Conversation Festival

The INDEX community was pleased to take part in the LAMPA Conversation Festival in Cēsis on June 20. The visit was supported by Robert Bosch Stiftung. The participants included:

— Daria Badior, Kyiv-based cultural critic, editor-in-chief of re/visions, journalist at Suspilne and co-founder of the Union of Film Critics of Ukraine.

— Diana Deliurman, journalist, photographer and Global Communications Manager at Lviv Media Forum.

— Dr Sasha Dovzhyk, writer, head of INDEX and editor-in-chief of London Ukrainian Review.

— Natalie Nougayrède, former editor-in-chief of Le Monde, member of The Guardian’s editorial board, INDEX Fellow and currently editor of re/visions.

The discussion was moderated by Rita Ruduša, a prominent Latvian journalist, media expert, writer and former public media executive.

The panellists talked about wartime stories from within Ukraine and their transformations abroad, about how Russia’s war has shifted audience needs on multiple levels, and how it has changed language.

“I try to focus on the topics that are critical for audiences both within and outside of Ukraine. For example, the environment: Ukraine is currently suffering from Russia's ecocide, but it is also the country that has survived one of the world’s worst nuclear catastrophes, the explosion at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant in 1986. So there are problems, but there are also coping mechanisms and resistance strategies that can be shared,” said INDEX’s Sasha Dovzhyk.

Daria Badior reflected on the topic of shame that people in Ukraine might feel for different reasons and in different contexts during wartime — for moving abroad, for not doing or donating enough for the army, for not being on the battlefield — and how to negotiate it in storytelling.

‍Natalie Nougayrède stressed the importance of taking personal responsibility for the decisions we make when covering war and the editorial choices coming with it. She also shared insights on temporality gained from her stay in Ukraine during the INDEX fellowship in Lviv.

“When you live in Ukraine, you have a new understanding of the motion of time. Because you live with such extreme uncertainty, even in a place like Lviv, which is relatively safe. In general, when Ukrainians decide to do something, they are going to do it very quickly,” Natalie said.

Diana Deliurman discussed the issue of mental health, sharing personal tips on how to avoid burnout while working under constant physical and emotional pressure. She also touched on the ethics of working with sensitive content and the inner compass that helps define the boundaries of what journalists should and shouldn’t publish.

The livestream of the conversation is available on our Facebook page.

LAMPA is a two-day festival founded in 2015 with a mission to promote the culture of democratic dialogue in Latvia and to foster civic participation and active engagement in social and political life. Its home is the Cēsis Castle Park, and it draws inspiration from similar democracy festivals in Denmark, Sweden and Estonia. INDEX hopes that, one day, it will be possible to bring this democracy festival to Ukraine.