The Second Session of the 15th-16th USPS programme

The Second Session is about socio-cultural relations, ethics, aesthetics, and expanding worldview. The Session programme is always designed to encourage participants to further search and reflect. This is a special session in a notable place, it brings the group even closer together and inspires them not to stop learning.

Art is primarily about culture and experience but it is also something exclusive that people dream of owning. Therefore, art has long time ago become a big industry with its own rules and institutions.

Oleksandr Scheluschenko – Art-dealer, founder, and Director of Modern Art Galleries TSEKH in Kyiv and Vilnius, 2010 USPS alumnus, explained to the participants the world of art-market and told about the structure of institutions in that industry, a role of an artist and a critic and why in Ukraine that industry does not function properly. Using the example of TSEKH gallery, which is almost the only successful non-governmental cultural institution of Contemporary Art in Ukraine, Oleksander showed that we have a demand for art, so we need to develop and transform the industry.

What is Ukraine’s place in global history? What unites us with the history of Europe and other parts of the world, and what makes us unique?

For a long time, on the international arena, Ukraine had an image of an empty space – Large border area. And what do we identify with ourselves? How does the world perceive us today, and what place do we occupy in it? How possible is the balance between liberalism and patriotism, between universal values and identity discourse in Ukraine?

Our group discussed those issues with Volodymyr Yermolenko, philosopher, writer, journalist, senior professor in NaUKMA, analytics direction at Internews Ukraine, and Board member of the International Renaissance Foundation.

Calls not to politicise culture are heard from everywhere, especially from people for whom supporting a particular position means losing money. But is it possible to stay out of politics in the eighth year of the war?

Politics is the art of solving problems here and now. It is focused on the present. And culture is directed to the future. A goal of an artist is to overcome time.

But can culture be outside politics? Can it just be politics?

Where are the limits of an artist’s responsibility and where do politicians need to pay attention to art?

Tetyana Ogarkova, Senior lecturer at the Department of literary studies of NaUKMA and lecturer at the second session of USPS, discussed with participants various concepts of cultural perception in the context of politics.

We live here and now. Time is an extension of the soul. Neither the future nor the past really exists. Past is a memory, future is an expectation. This is how Aurelius Augustine thought about time.

So, what determines our future? Is it caused by factors out of our control, or do we create it ourselves by making free choices? Is there free will that makes this choice possible? If there is no free will, what determines our actions, and are we responsible for them?

Vakhtang Kebuladze, philosopher, essayist, translator, professor of the Department of theoretical and practical philosophy of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, held interesting discussions with the participants about future, time, science, our dreams and fears around human freedom.

Ivan Gomza, PhD in political science, lecturer and head of the Department of Public Administration at Kyiv School of Economics and a permanent lecturer in USPS, conducted a training for participants that helped them understand what the theory of political cleavage is, why populism can be called a “subtle ideology” or a political strategy and how polarisation of society hinders development of states.

Political populism is a familiar concept for Ukrainian and world politics, about which we hear almost every day. However, a correct understanding of the nature of this phenomenon and context in which its promises become particularly tempting is not a part of discussions about populism.

To better understand the phenomenon, it is necessary to turn to history and trace how and when political parties were born because they eventually became environment for populism to flourish. Ivan Gomza told the group about all this.

Regardless of an era, books have always had a special meaning in human consciousness. Not reading and talking about it means incurring reputational losses. However, literature, as well as culture in general, is often politicised by authors themselves or readers, who search for hidden meanings. Therefore, it is important to understand how to still notice a political aspect of a book and when looking at a book through the prism of politics is appropriate, justified and necessary.

Yevheniy Stasinevych, Literary critic and member of the renewed Shevchenko Committee, told our participants how to read, rather than look for a political facet of books and what author’s intention is.

No system can remain unchanged all the time, so to make decisions and build policies, it is necessary to analyse systems and cycles inherent in them. To predict events in a particular system, it is necessary, first of all, to understand a difference between politics and policy, to investigate which correlations, relationships and dominants were present in past cycles and which markers had the greatest power.

What is a correct approach to predicting events in a particular system? And how to distinguish professional forecasting from forecasts of “experts” that we hear from everywhere? Mykhailo Koltsov, PhD, World Bank analyst and head of U-Control Training Department, helped our participants understand such a difficult issue.

Pavlo Sheremeta, manager-economist, co-founder of Schumpeter School of Innovation, and Minister of economic development and trade (2014), is confident that a breakthrough is impossible without production of innovations and development of entrepreneurship.

However, in Ukraine, business still exists not because of but rather against the state – entrepreneurs have no guarantees that their business will be protected from raiding. The country is experiencing a demographic crisis and capital outflow, which also does not contribute to development of entrepreneurship, innovative ones especially. And in order for progress to take place, the state must ensure two things – first, security, and secondly, give freedom to business.

What else needs to happen for Ukraine to make a breakthrough? What are Creative Destruction and Blue Ocean Strategy? Pavlo Sheremeta discussed these issues together with the participants at the final platform of the Second Session of USPS.

That was the School’s session in Odesa. 5 days full of training ended but the participants got even more motivation to learn. We are looking forward for a new meeting in Lviv!