Eighteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

In the context of the new [Russian - Ukranian] military conflict in Europe, a new urge arose to reconsider the challenges of representing the complexities of collective history. How to reconcile past and contemporary perspectives on the East military conflicts and their legacy from the privileged position in the West? A comics artist from Serbia and a documentary filmmaker from Moldova debate how their geographical position affected the creation of stories about places of their past. They touch upon the limits of artists’ responsibility for their art and the audience by reflecting on the tensions between the intent and impact of the artistic objects they create. Moreover, their investigations are concerned with the tensions between objectivity and subjectivity and between the personal and the collective in their work. Reflecting on the specificities of their respective mediums, comics and documentary movies, they explain different approaches to tackle the challenges arising in their projects. This research reflects on the complex relationships between the privileged position of being an artist and the vulnerability of targeted people at the intersection of collective memory, testimony and trauma of military conflicts and their implications for ethical praxis.