Unima International’s Roundtable « CULTURE OF PEACE »
« UNIMA (Union Internationale de la Marionnette) is an international Non-Governmental Organization bringing together people from around the world who contribute to the development of the art of puppetry, with the objective of using this art in the pursuit of human values such as peace and mutual understanding between peoples, regardless of race, political or religious convictions and differences in culture, in accordance with the respect of fundamental human rights, such as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations of December 10th, 1948. »
Preambule of UNIMA Internatiobal’s Statutes, available on the website : https://www.unima.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/EN-HYBRID_CONGRES_BALI_2023_STATUTES.pdf
Never have human realities been so divided and so close together as in the latest crises we are facing. In addition to the health and environmental crises, there are acute political crises, such as the wars and conflicts that are causing real human tragedies, particularly in Palestine, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Sudan and Ukraine these last years.
What is the role of an NGO in the face of such tragedies and wars? What is the role of puppeteers in such situations of extreme urgency and human limit states ? What are we talking about when we speak of a “culture of peace”? What can the puppet arts do to help and respond to these human challenges ? What can an NGO that promotes and defends the puppetry arts do ? Can we change the world, or at least try to change mentalities, and promote ways of exchange, culture and creativity? These are the questions that the UNIMA International Round Table will formulate and open up in order to provide answers and assert the primacy for right of individual and of life, of future generations as well as of freedom of spirit. Art and artists have always shown us the way to more open, fairer and more humane world.
How can we think of these two concepts together, “the culture of peace” ? What does it mean? Isn’t this a redundancy, or a doubling of meaning, which challenges us to make this “hope” possible ? To develop it, don’t we have to think of it in terms of a humane global society ? How can we think beyond politics to a cosmopolitics of creativity and tolerance ? All these questions raise issues for an international civil society such as UNIMA International.
As part of the 7th edition of the JEM festival and the opening of the festival on the weekend of 17 to 20 May, this Round Table aims to give voice and reflection to UNESCO’s desire to develop a “Culture of Peace”. Emeritus professor and honorary member Nina Malikova will talk about the founding times of UNIMA and the idea of UNIMA. The Palestinian artist and researcher Husam Abed will ask us about the ‘resistant object’ on stage, or ‘the resistant puppet on stage’, and how the art of puppetry can build processes of symbolic openness. Daria Ivanova, professor at the Kyiv Academy and visiting assistant professor at the University of Düsseldorf, will be premiering her forthcoming book about Ukraine and ‘the resistance of puppet theatres in times of war’. Fedelis Kyalo will talk about his experience as an artist and about art as a cognitive function for learning and creativity in Kenya. Every year since the troubled period of 2003, UNIMA International has organised World Puppet Day on 21 March. This year, three theatres from the former Yugoslavia (Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Serbia) put on an online show to raise funds for children and puppeteers in the Gaza Strip. The show, entitled “De la tendresse”, was directed by Inès Pasic, an artist from Mostar who has moved to Peru and wrote the message for “World Puppet Day 2024”. The UNIMA Scandinavia centres will be launching an international appeal to all puppeteers for World Peace Day on 21 September 2024.
All the contributions will be approached through historical, geographical and cultural questioning, as well as artists’ testimonies, in a vision of proposals and declarations. More than ever, we need to assert the power of culture and creativity to make the world a better place.
Dimitri Jageneau
Secretary-general, of UNIMA International/ Artistic Director of JEM festoval and of Royal Theatre Peruchet
Registration for online viewers need to be sent to info@unima.org