[oberlist] Petition for Support of the Visual Culture Research Center at NaUKMA

[Vasyl Cherepanyn]

Dear all,



On February 10th, 2012, the President of the National University of
Kyiv-Mohyla Academy Serhiy Kvit banned the exhibition of the Visual Culture
Research Center “Ukrainian Body” that explored the issues of corporality in
contemporary Ukrainian society. Serhiy Kvit explained his decision in the
following way: “It’s not an exhibition, it’s shit”. After the act of
censorship, which drew a wide response in the Ukrainian and foreign media,
the President of NaUKMA has initiated a number of bureaucratic restrictions
against the Visual Culture Research Center as the organizers of the
exhibition. On February 23rd the Academic Council of the university
led by Serhiy
Kvit passed a resolution to bar the activities of VCRC.



On March 12th, the President of NaUKMA Serhiy Kvit made a resolution on the
prohibition of all events and exhibitions in the Old Academic
building, where the Visual Culture Research Center has been working since
2008, referring to the building's “condition conducive to accident”.
Despite its “accident rate” the galleries of Old Academic building are
shortly to be used as the library archives. Hence the President of NaUKMA
closed the VCRC's exhibition “Ukrainian Body” at first, then the Center
itself, and eventually the premises where the VCRC is conducting
events, announcing their “condition conducive to accident”.



We consider such gestures unacceptable acts of censorship against public
dialogue on crucial social and political problems. The present sanctions
are blocking the Visual Culture Research Center's current and
future activities. The Center has become a milieu that provides
critical thought and alternative knowledge for NaUKMA community and beyond.
One can see the scope of Center’s activity on its webpage
http://vcrc.ukma.kiev.ua/uk/archive/, it includes many
international conferences and seminars, exhibitions, presentations and
talks, and other events that attracted many students and broad public.
NaUKMA has already received letters of support, asking to resume the
Center's work in full scope, among them from Slavoj Žižek, Eric Fassin,
David Elliott, Aleksander Kwasniewski, Serhiy Yekelchyk, Tarik Cyril Amar,
John-Paul Himka, Aleksandr Bikbov, Michel Onfray, Artur Zmijewski, Vitaly
Chernetsky, Oksana Timofeeva, Mikhail Mayatskiy, Sara Goodman, Alek Epstein
and others.



*We call for the immediate restoration of academic and artistic freedom at
Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and **ask the President of NaUKMA Serhiy Kvit to resume
the Center's work in full scope in its current working space.*



Please join this initiative to support the activities of the Visual Culture
Research Center. Please sign the petition responding to this letter with
your name, title and affiliation or write your own letter to the
President of NaUKMA Serhiy Kvit (kwit at ukma.kiev.ua) asking to resume the
Center's activity in the Old Academic building.



Please spread this petition.

For more information about the situation, please read the following:

http://ua.euronews.net/2012/02/14/ukraine-modern-art-controversy/

http://derstandard.at/1329870496526/Ende-eines-Kulturzentrums-Kiew-Kein-Raum-fuer-den-ukrainischen-Koerper

http://ukraineanalysis.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/sex-nationalism-and-academic-freedom-the-controversy-at-kyiv-mohyla/



Thank you for your attention and support!

-- 
Vasyl Cherepanyn
PhD, Cultural Studies Department,
Director of Visual Culture Research Center
National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy
http://vcrc.ukma.kiev.ua/uk/
Old Academic Building, 1 st floor

2 Skovorody Street
04655 Kyiv Ukraine

If you have come here to help me, then don't waste your time. But if you
have come here, because your liberation is bound up with mine, then come,
let us join in the struggle together - Australian Aborigene Activists
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