The article examines the current state of the Ukrainian contemporary art market in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the occupation of a portion of the country’s territory. We look at how the war affects various agents of the art world in the short term and how they respond to the crisis. As the crisis is still ongoing, this is an interim study; the information was collected up until mid-April 2022. We believe that putting the data together now will be critical for a better understanding and analysis of what will transpire afterwards. As we can see, the war has turned into the most heinous embodiment of violence against Ukrainian culture. Employees of the Kyiv-based art gallery Portal 11 gathered the materials for this article. The majority of the materials were gathered during a written survey of artists with whom the gallery has worked since its foundation. We also included materials obtained privately from collectors. Many facts are covered for the first time in our article because they only just occurred during this specific period. The Ukrainian art market has actively sought to integrate itself into the global art market. Every year an increasing number of artists and galleries from Ukraine participate in various art events, exhibitions, and auctions. Digital technologies, social networks, and globalisation have opened up many opportunities for Ukrainian art. Many Ukrainian artists and art dealers have found success in foreign markets. The war is an unprecedented event, having a profound impact on the Ukrainian art community. It has no parallels in Ukrainian history and possibly in European history since World War II. The fates of most Ukrainian artists, collectors, galleries, and artworks were irrevocably altered on February 24, 2022, when the first Russian bombs exploded. We have unwittingly become participants and witnesses to a massive cultural disaster, as well as a shift in all processes related to the art market in Ukraine. Artists and the art industry as a whole are now actively working on various ways to help the country. One of the most essential messages in this article is that the Ukrainian art sector requires assistance as well. Artists A survey of artists, with whom we have collaborated since the gallery’s establishment, allowed us to record important facts, including their emotional states. First of all, we were interested in the places where our respondents were when the war started and where they are after 3–4 weeks. Other questions included the following: Where are your works now? What is happening with your workshop now? Can you continue to work and create art under these conditions? Do you already have ideas and plans for a creative future and what are they? Have you cancelled any projects because of the war and which ones? Do you know the fate of your works that are in private collections around the world, especially in Ukraine? Any forms of answers were accepted. Subsequently, they were organised according to their content. Under ideal conditions, we would wait for a response from the 67 artists with whom we have interacted since the opening of the gallery. But we are glad that more than half of them responded to us in these extreme conditions. We believe the findings from the sample of 34 artists can represent the situations of all Ukrainian artists and the entire country. The gender ratio of participants reflects the population of Ukraine. The respondents turned out to be artists from all parts of our country (from the west, east, and centre of Ukraine), including an artist from Crimea (who once experienced a similar situation of being attacked by the Russian Federation and forced to move), an artist from Mariupol (who miraculously escaped with her family from this city), and more from Poltava, Kyiv, Lviv, and other cities respectively. They got in touch, took the time, and shared their experience, for which we are very grateful. We also received a response from an artist-veteran of the ATO (Anti-Terrorist Operation on the territory of Donetsk and Lugansk regions since 2014), who is now at the forefront. Statistics show that on February 24, 2022, all but one of the artists encountered the sounds of the first rocket strikes at home. Subsequently, 30% remained in the same place at the time of the survey, 48% became internally displaced, and 21% went abroad. Artists from western Ukraine, further from the borders with the Russian Federation, stayed at home, and most of the inhabitants of the eastern, northern, and southern parts became refugees. Egor and Nikita Zigura, two well-known sculptors working in tandem, are experiencing difficulties. They worked together before the war but were separated as a result of it. Egor is currently in Europe while Nikita is in Ukraine. We wonder what kind of dynamics their work will take on in the future. Artists of each gender were impacted differently by the war. Since the start of the war and the introduction of martial law, many female artists have left Ukraine. They lost access to their works and studios, but found themselves safe and supported in the West. Male artists do not have the opportunity to leave Ukraine before the end of martial law. Although some of them have retained access to their workshops and artworks, they do not have the opportunity to be safe and work at full capacity. Regarding the location of the artists’ works, results show that 84% of works remained on the territory of Ukraine, 54% of them at home and in studios. Only 15% had some work outside their homeland. They are preserved from being destroyed by war by international projects as well as by being in private foreign collections. Astian Rey, for example, was one of the artists whose work was stuck at exhibition sites: ‘It just so happened that a week before the conflict began, I presented a personal exhibition, Form. Symbol. Time, at Kyiv’s city gallery Lavra. In addition, I participated in an Italian project at the Institute of Contemporary Art on the subject of Dante Alighieri. The majority of my work remains in these institutions. However, a portion of them remained in the workshop’.[1] Artists cannot always track their paintings in private collections. It is possible that they were resold. While people run from war, leaving all of their belongings behind, it becomes even more difficult. Therefore, only 27% of artists knew that their works were safe, while 4.5% were only aware of the destiny of a portion of their work. Others surveyed did not have any information. Maxim Mazur offered perhaps the most emotional and humane answer to the question about his work’s location: ‘there is nothing more important than human lives. I didn’t think about the fate of my works in the collections’. His exhibition was to be mounted in our gallery on February 24, 2022, and an opening was planned for the next day.[2] Vsevolod Kovtun also told us: ‘the last purchased work was for a private collection, I do not know the fate of it and other works sold. And I will not try to find out about them, so as not to provoke an excessive sense of guilt in people who may not have been able to save art during hostilities. The main thing is that these people are saving their lives now—because human life is much more valuable than my work’. We have also learnt from other sources that the exhibition of the famous street artist Gamlet, 3652019 + 2/3, is stuck in the Kyiv art platform M17.[3] He presented the exhibition on February 18, 2022. During the war, he took a proactive stance and is raising funds on social networks to help the Armed Forces of Ukraine and civilians.[4] After the recent exhibition in the gallery Portal 11 of the artist Victoria Adkozalova,[5] one of the bought paintings, Pink Flamingo, remained in our framing workshop; the new owner will collect it after the war. For an artist, a gallery is a stage, and an exhibition is a performance. This is a crucial aspect of life for a successful artist, so we couldn’t ignore it. More than 87% suffered from the disruption of plans due to the war. Of these, a quarter needed to deal with both postponed and cancelled plans. As most of the galleries and museums in the country have paused their exhibitions, and the delivery of works abroad is problematic, only 12% of artists have not cancelled any projects. As far we are aware, some projects are still going as planned, and most of them are located abroad. Ivan Turetskyy’s paintings were stored in Europe after a museum project in Italy and an exhibition in Switzerland in 2021. In April, two exhibitions became possible: one in Fabrica del Vapore in Milan[6] and the other in Villa Longoni near Milan. One exhibition was planned ahead of time, while the other occurred as a result of a rising interest in Ukrainian art. The studios of 75% of respondents were intact at the time of our study. Most of the answers contained the hope that everything was fine with the workshop because it was difficult to find out about its condition. We hope that, even if it is impossible to find out about the state of the workshop at the moment, after the war they will be reunited with their owners unscathed. In fact, 20% of respondents remain unaware of the state of their workspaces. And 3% reformatted these premises out of necessity into, for example, a shelter for friends, acquaintances, relatives, and those who needed it. Olga Zaremba wrote: ‘the room where my workshop is located is used as a shelter and for other wartime needs’. Oleksandr Prytula shared his unique experience: ‘the workshop is in working condition, but since sculpting requires a lot of money (materials, moulding, 3D printing, casting, etc.), I spend little time there...My workshop is now entirely my computer’. As many artists do not have access to their workshops, their regular tools and materials have to change. Those who worked with large scale oil paintings are now switching to smaller sizes and watercolours or pencil and chalk. Sculptors cannot continue their work with stone, wood, and metal. Olga Zaremba, an artist from Kyiv, replied to our survey: ‘my notebooks, pencils and watercolours go with me. These materials take up as little space as possible’. Artists who are familiar with new technologies embraced digital art completely. Many artists have told us that they are now working with NFT art to support Ukraine with the funds raised from the token sales. Anna Moskaletz said: ‘I make digital works for sale at NFT auctions to transfer 100% of the profit to the needs of the Armed Forces’. Creativity Art is a social phenomenon; it is always affected by and reflects the state of the society. The experience of war transforms art; it gives rise to new styles, new techniques, and movements. Resentment, rage, despair, depression, and, on the other hand, unity and solidarity are all powerful emotions that artists experience and express in their work. Although a quarter of the respondents experienced difficulties in their creative processes, more than half of the survey participants were able to continue creative activities in one form or another. 22% cannot even hold a pencil in their hands and are waiting for victory, peacetime, and a sufficient sense of security. Mariko Gelman admitted that it is extremely difficult for her to work: ‘I am creating a graphic series # summer2050 about the sanctions and the turn of Russia to the Paleolithic. I can’t paint. Maybe, because right now everything is ruined in my homeland—people, connections, adequacy. That is why it is very hard for me to live and create vividly’. She still tries to do something useful, ‘donating my artworks for the needs of the Ukrainian army, volunteering, and not falling into despair, now I take part in exhibitions and events in support of Ukraine. For example, we worked together with Urban Sketchers Prague on a painting session on the island of Kampa in Prague, and then sold our work, transferring all the money to the Člověk v tísni Foundation, which cares for displaced Ukrainians in the Czech Republic. A similar event is currently being held by the Czech gallery Holešovická Šachta, where I have donated three of my works’.[7] A lot of artists have retained the ability to create. They record events and create supportive patriotic art. Those who have adjusted take part in humanitarian missions and assist in battle on their front lines. They are also in a difficult situation, but they help to collect money and even deliver food under siege. In terms of plans and ideas for the future, only 77% of the artists are thinking about creative projects and their implementation. Because of a substantial emotional shock as well as an inability to meet fundamental human needs, such as security, 23% confessed they are unable to think about their artistic career. What are these plans about? Everyone in the survey, without exception, mentions the war and the reflection on personal experiences during this challenging time. Nataliia Antypina, a ceramic artist, responded: ‘Ideas for art are very difficult to produce because constant stress keeps you from concentrating. There are ideas to help rebuild Ukraine, I think I can take part, and fill it with art and important meanings. So that future generations will never forget this tragedy and the heroic struggle of the Ukrainians’. Artists are now focused on helping the country in whatever manner they can, with the great majority of concepts centred on promoting Ukraine’s brand. In the post-war period, a boom in patriotic motives is foreseen. Artists always show the most acute problems, raise the most daring questions, experiment with the most contradictory forms, and discover the most unexpected facts. Collective shock trauma is afflicting our people. Independent artists and other creative organisations have already begun to respond. Current events undoubtedly drive artists to create patriotic art, with the most visible trend being a widespread fascination with national Ukrainian symbolism. The yellow and blue colours of the Ukrainian flag, the national flower, the sunflower, the Ukrainian Coat of Arms in the shape of a trident, the characteristics of national clothing, and so on, are frequently used to encourage the national spirit. Anna Moskaletz wrote in an answer to our survey: ‘since my art was imbued with Ukrainian motives before the war, I will continue to work in the same direction. Now my series with national scarves is more relevant than ever. Although, I think that after my experience the narratives will still change a bit and become even deeper because through the prism of acquired emotions and atrophy of fears it is quite natural’. We must, however, emphasise that before the war we noticed that demand for contemporary art pieces with traditional national symbols was lower than the desire for modern art pieces with a more global style in the art market. We expect this to change in Ukraine as a result of the current surge of patriotism, although the pieces in the current trend may be less popular in the international art market. It is appropriate at this point to quote Oleksandr Prytula, one of the artists who replied to our questionnaire: ‘every day, new ideas emerge. Politics and topics concerning global issues only appeared on rare occasions in my work. That’s why it’s important for me to keep it balanced now, so that everything said through creativity is first and foremost honest, not because Ukrainian symbols are hyping now. Obviously, soon, I plan to create sculptures and graphics inspired by events that take place literally outside the window. I will try to keep everything in the style that was inherent in my work before. It’s critical, in my opinion!’ Because art images have the undeniable force and potential to convey a powerful message in a concise form, art has become increasingly effective for ideological purposes. People are brought together by artistic imagery. A lot of art images serving this purpose can be found on the streets, on billboards, and on social media. Contemporary Ukrainian patriotic art images are actively used now as illustrations for news reports. There are partnerships between the top magazines in the world and Ukrainian artists. Visual artists working in the field of documentary photography are highly significant, because they chronicle the horrific moments of this conflict for the rest of the world to see. Documentary photography exhibitions from Ukraine are being held all over the world. On March 28th, renowned American magazine Time published two covers, one titled ‘The Resilience of Ukraine’ and the other ‘The Agony of Ukraine’. A photograph by Ukrainian artist Maxim Dondyuk depicts the country’s suffering in the face of the Russian invasion on one of the covers. In the photograph, a Ukrainian soldier is seen assisting a mother and her child in evacuating the Kyiv suburb of Irpin, which Russian forces were attempting to occupy as part of their besiegement of the capital.[8] War-inspired street art is already emerging. In Odesa, the artist Igor Matroskin draws cats. These cats represent the Ukrainian Army and ordinary people with patriotic symbols.[9] Text art is also actively used as words become a symbol of support; they empower people. Graffiti and posters where the text appropriates symbolic value and is turned into popular art can be seen all over Ukraine. This type of art can also be attributed to propaganda art. The phrase ‘Russian warship go fuck yourself’ was communicated by a Ukrainian soldier, defender of the Zmiinyi (Snake) Island of Ukraine, Marine Roman Grybov, and became one of the most important slogans of this war.[10] Artists are actively using the phrase, as do companies for marketing purposes. It is used now as a symbol, written on the streets, in tabloids, on t-shirts, on cars, and even in the official design of bank cards. The popularity of these words inevitably led to the rise of the problem of copyright protection and royalty. When the soldier returned to Ukraine from captivity, he filed for an EU trademark application as the phrase had become viral and its value had grown to be of national importance.[11] The Ukrainian national postal operator Ukrposhta has announced a competition for artists to design a collectable postage stamp for the slogan discussed above.[12] The winning image became the sketch by the artist from Crimea, Boris Grokh. As soon as the sale began, there was a queue kilometres long in front of the central branch of Ukrposhta in Kyiv. People stood in it for five hours for the brand, which has already become a legend. On April 22, Ukrainian postage stamps, on which a Russian warship sets off in a direction known to all, signed by the author of the legendary phrase and General Director of Ukrposhta, were sold at the Prozorro charity online auction for 5 million UAH (≈165 thousand USD). This is 200 times more than the starting price.[13] This is an example of how artists are being used for ideological and marketing purposes. We can see how art performances around the world bring attention to the conflict in Ukraine. On the 25 March in Warsaw, approximately four thousand people laid down on the ground and covered themselves with bags and coats in solidarity with Ukraine, to show how Ukrainian cities look now with the dead bodies of Ukrainian civilians who cannot be buried under fire.[14] This action, under the title ‘Stop promising, start acting!’, was organised to force the US president to provide everything to close the sky above Ukraine.[15] Later these actions were reproduced in many cities all over the world. An art installation was created by the French artist JR in Lviv. A 45-metre-long photograph of a 5-year-old Ukrainian refugee Valeriia was held up by more than 100 people on March 14. This performance draws attention to the terrifying number of Ukrainian children who have been slain since Russia’s invasion began, and the thousands who have fled in search of safety. The ‘Resilience’ cover of Time magazine features an aerial view of this performance.[16] As a contemporary art gallery in Kyiv, we are fascinated by artists’ ideas. We are prepared to organise exhibitions of front-line photographs, heroic sculptures, paintings, and other installations that depict the experience. Although art with a political agenda is frequently seen as inferior, we are aware of numerous instances in art history where artwork was used first as propaganda and afterwards acclaimed as a masterpiece. In wartime, the significance of symbols cannot be overstated. Art galleries Kyiv Kyiv, Ukraine’s undeniable cultural capital, is home to a plethora of museums and art galleries of remarkable cultural and historical significance. Treasuries of national art saved here represent Ukraine’s rich culture from antiquity to the present day. In the early days of the war in Kyiv, citizens were actively evacuated. Many employees of galleries and museums were forced to flee the city or were trapped in the outskirts. According to our conversations with colleagues from other galleries, practically all Kyiv galleries are now focusing their efforts on assisting in the evacuation of contemporary art pieces, as well as various humanitarian missions in Ukraine and abroad. Art galleries in Ukraine are often located in semi-basement converted premises with a separate entrance. Since the galleries are equipped with heating and other amenities, some gallery owners in Kyiv and other cities have turned their premises into shelters. Gallerists are planning several exhibition projects abroad but cannot hold exhibitions in their galleries in Kyiv until the ongoing hostilities have ended. On the day war broke out, an exhibition by the artist Maxim Mazur was scheduled to be mounted in the Kyiv-based gallery Portal 11. The catalogue was ready, there were big plans for the opening the next day. With the first rocket blasts in Kyiv, it was obvious that our gallery’s exhibiting activity would be interrupted. Shock was the initial reaction. Then came the time to reflect on the situation and make decisions. All gallery employees were notified that all projects were being stopped until the situation was clear. Our gallery had plenty of plans for the coming months, several projects in our space, participation in the Luxembourg Art Fair, and an exhibition of our artists in Italy in April 2022. We always plan projects for at least a year ahead in the schedule of our gallery. Since the gallery is located in the historical centre of Kyiv and is close to the government quarter, we found ourselves in a place of a potential attack by Russian troops. Access to the Gallery has been blocked for security reasons. There was the question of the safety of the works that were brought to the gallery the day before for the installation of the exhibition. Also, there was the question of the safety of the gallery’s collection and works commissioned by the gallery, but not completed by the artists. On the day the war began, we had to organise the conservation and preservation of an unfinished large-scale tapestry that we were preparing for the autumn exhibition. After two months of the war, we were able to organise the continuation of the tapestry work. We, as a gallery, have also organised temporary storage of the works of the artist Alexei Koval. In addition, a private collection of contemporary art from Kharkiv was brought to us for safe storage. During the war, we managed to complete the creation of an audio guide in the Ukrainian language for the Pantheon in Rome. The audio guide is already published on the museum’s website, and now the Pantheon is speaking Ukrainian. War crimes in Bucha, near Kyiv, were broadcast all over the world. A huge gallery space was opened there half a year before the conflict. Fortunately, it was out of the way of the battle, and the gallery building was unharmed. The gallery’s future is unknown, as the city was severely devastated and will take a long time to recover. Some gallery owners fled to other countries during the war. Some gallerists were already abroad, where they held exhibition projects. For example, the Voloshin Gallery owners were in the USA with an exhibition project of the gallery and the run of their pop-up exhibition there was extended.[17] East Kharkiv is a region located in the East of the country on the border with the Russian Federation. Kharkiv itself is known as a clean, beautiful, cultural city, full of students and youth, with many educational opportunities. The creative artistic life of the city is as highly developed as in the capital. According to our calculations, before the war, about 22 exhibition spaces were operating in this area, including state museums with unique collections, as well as about 20 art schools, 3 specialised colleges, and an art academy. The Kharkiv Art Museum announced on its social networks that the team managed to evacuate the permanent exhibition at the beginning of the war. They also shared photos of empty walls.[18] Tatyana Rud, an employee of the Kharkiv Literary Museum, spoke on Hromadske radio about the movement and evacuation of art objects: ‘The topic of evacuating the museum collection has been discussed since 2014. At the same time, we compiled lists of the most valuable museum items in the collection... In the summer of 2021, the museums of Ukraine received a questionnaire from the Ministry of Culture about readiness for the evacuation of cultural property in the event of an armed conflict...The Ministry of Culture has an idea of ​​how ready museums are for the evacuation of what they need’.[19] The Kharkiv Municipal Gallery, which actively promoted artists, including participation in foreign art fairs, showed their premises during the war on their social media. The gallery was hit by a shell; there is damage but the building survived. Friends of the gallery helped to close the broken windows and protect the premises from possible further destruction. The gallery team now works remotely. Kharkiv’s Yermilov art centre has become a safe place for local artists, as it is located in the basement of the university. Hiding from shelling in this makeshift shelter, the activists created the ‘HOW ARE YOU’ project. Konstantin Zorkin writes: ‘the project ‘HOW ARE YOU’ is a total installation consisting of various constructions for sleeping, cooking, washing and entertainment. This is a performance where artists constantly work in the environment which they created and in the company of other artists. This is an adaptation of the exhibition space with the remnants of the last exhibition for life and creative needs. This project shows a new form of relationship between the space and the artist, the art institution and the art community, which may be the final for the great historical cycle of Kharkiv art. We were there together, we built a house out of what we could find, we worked and rested, we were synchronously scared of explosions and calmed each other down. And everything we did was real art’.[20] The city also contains the art studio Aza Nizi Maza. They have a very recognizable style of art, but it is nonetheless clear that the students are given maximum freedom of expression. Now the studio conducts classes in the Kharkiv metro where people are hiding from airstrikes. For everyone, this is akin to art therapy. Their work reflects the reality and experiences of every Ukrainian.[21] Mariupol is the city that probably has suffered most from the war. According to reports, there was not a single intact building remaining in the area.[22] One of the destroyed buildings was the Academic Drama Theatre, which was hit by an air bomb. According to inaccurate data, 300 people died in the basement of the theatre.[23] At the time of writing, the Azovstal plant, where about a thousand residents have been hiding for 2 months, is being attacked by the Russian army. The plant is held as the last fortress. Local residents who escaped along the green corridors are an exception. Most were forcibly deported to Russia. We were very lucky to contact an artist who managed to escape from Mariupol and is in a relatively safe city now. About the past cultural life of the city, Violetta Terlyha recalls: ‘the galleries that I know are the popular Kuindzhi Gallery and the Tu! platform, but I don’t know the fate of either of them, since it was completely impossible to move from area to area in the city and track the situation’. In total, according to our calculations, there were about 10 spaces dedicated to contemporary art in Mariupol. The Kuindzhi Gallery was destroyed. It kept the originals of works by Ivan Aivazovsky, Tatiana Yablonskaya, Mykhailo Deregus, and other world-famous Ukrainian artists. The fate of these paintings is still unknown. But according to the head of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine, at the time of the shelling, there were no original paintings by Arkhip Kuindzhi. There were only copies by A. Yalansky and O. Olkhov.[24] The Tu! platform is an urban space created in 2015 to fight against the war. Their motto has been relevant to our country ever since. They took a quote from the correspondence of Freud and Einstein: ‘everything that works for culture works against war’. In the period up to 2022, they held lectures, creative performances, and exhibitions. In the new setting, the Tu! platform promotes its Emergency Assistance Fund. They raised about $30,000 and transferred that money to help families in Mariupol. Thanks to the activities of the platform, more than 200 residents of Mariupol received assistance. The Foundation helps not only financially, but also with evacuation and volunteer support.[25] We have received news not only about everyday looting by the Russian army of the Ukrainian population but also of exhibition spaces. Russian troops are robbing the archival and cultural funds of museums that did not have time to evacuate. They take the exhibits to Donetsk for evaluation and will take the most valuable exhibits to Russia.[26] West Since the war started, one of the authors of this article has moved to Lutsk. Life in the city is as normal as it could be in these circumstances. It is a beautiful historical city and is home to The Korsaks' Museum of Contemporary Ukrainian Art. The cultural and entertainment centre where the museum is located was transformed into a temporary shelter for up to 500 refugees and organises a one-day course ‘Tactical Medicine and Combat Training’.[27] The museum created the Art Battalion, an art marathon that will last until Ukraine’s victory. They invite musicians, artists, poets, philosophers, and writers and organise daily concerts, literary meetings, performances, and classes, which are free of charge for anyone who wants a distraction and to enjoy the therapeutic properties of art.[28] The Lutsk gallery of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine stopped its exhibition activity but stayed open. Volunteers are making camouflage nets for the Ukrainian army. There is also an art therapy class and the paintings of those who attend are hung on the walls of the gallery. In Ivano-Frankivsk, the art space Assortment Room has stepped up its efforts to preserve Ukrainian art. In times of peace, they planned to hold many residencies. Now they are evacuating private collections and helping artists. The up-to-date information is that they have received 30 requests, implemented 10 of those and could move works by 17 artists to bunkers. These total around 400 artworks.[29] Lviv galleries did not stop their exhibition activities after the outbreak of the war, and further adjusted their efforts to humanitarian projects. With the beginning of the war, only one gallery stopped working in Lviv (the Veles gallery, since its owner temporarily went abroad). Art collectors Information about private collections was gathered through collectors with whom the gallery collaborated, as well as from open publications on social networks. The majority of the collectors requested anonymity. The situation with private collections is currently in flux and is solely dependent on the success of the Ukrainian armed forces. The unexpectedness of the Russian invasion of Ukraine predetermined the fate of many private collections. Most of the collections of contemporary art at the time of the beginning of the war were in Ukraine in their places of permanent storage. None of the collectors we interviewed believed in the possibility of a full-scale Russian invasion. The only exceptions, where the art objects were moved in advance, were those in the collections of the diplomats. Following the announcement of the US citizens’ evacuation, the procedure of exporting the valuable property of all foreign citizens began. Some foreign citizens evacuated their private collections partially, they tried to quickly sell some items by offering them to Ukrainian auctions and other private collectors. To our knowledge, these attempts were not successful. The majority of contemporary art collections are located in the largest Ukrainian cities including Lviv, Kharkiv, Odesa, and Dnipro, with Kyiv taking the lead. Private houses are typically clustered around large cities in the suburbs where collectors frequently reside and store their collections. The general situation at the moment is that there is no mass departure of collectors from their homes in the western region of Ukraine, and they do not see at this stage the need to evacuate collections. We should note that in conditions when hostilities are rapidly approaching and evacuation is not planned, art objects are usually not taken along as first priority. Human instincts are triggered to take what is necessary for survival in the coming hours and days. These are clothes, food, medicines, and fuel. It is only possible to bring small works of art with you in such circumstances. For collectors who lived in the suburbs of Kyiv and Kharkiv, the time to get ready for evacuation was sometimes calculated in several minutes. In the Kyiv region, most of the collections have not been evacuated, since Russian troops already reached the northern suburbs of the city on 24 February 2022, the first day of the invasion. In the first days, there were individual manifestations of panic among the population, and leaving the city was hampered by huge traffic jams. One of the clients of the gallery, who lives in the suburbs of Kyiv, said that the workers of his estate put his collection in the basement. For some time, they were monitoring the house, but as soon as the battle broke out in the village, they abandoned the house. After the liberation of the suburbs of Kyiv, it was possible to find out the fate of his collection. Most of the items survived; only a few paintings were damaged. The Russian soldiers who settled in the house were not interested in art, since the house also kept a large collection of wines, which they completely drank and plundered. Another collector left his home near Kyiv and now has a Russian tank in his yard; he has yet to return and has no knowledge of what has been going on inside the house. We only know of a handful of cases when collections of contemporary art were partially evacuated from Kyiv when the war broke out. The collection of a private museum belonging to Igor Ponamarchuk’s family was partially evacuated. He has both antique and contemporary paintings in his collection. When the war started, he was able to transport a portion of the collection from Kyiv to Lviv in the west of Ukraine. The situation is especially difficult in Kharkiv and its environs, as the city was subjected to massive shelling by heavy artillery and airstrikes. Collections were not taken out of this city and the situation will be clear only after the end of the war. At the moment, we know that several collections of contemporary art are intact. One of them contains a painting by Ivan Turetskyy, purchased from the gallery Portal 11 at the exhibition. We discovered its fate through the research for this article. According to a publication by Boris Grinev, a well-known Kharkiv collector, his collection of contemporary art was evacuated with the help of volunteers and territorial defence. One of the volunteers, Anton Khrustalov, later died because he was shot by the Russian occupants. Given the intensity of hostilities, the Kharkiv, Kyiv, Sumy, and Chernihiv collections are in the greatest danger. Border areas are suffering the most at this time. Regarding Odesa and Dnipro collections, we can say that they were in relative safety up to this moment, but the situation changed as, after 2 months of the war, rocket attacks on Odesa and Dnipro intensified. All art objects located in Mariupol shared the fate of the city. Part destroyed, part looted and taken to Russia. Regarding Western Ukrainian collections, we can say that they are in relative safety at the moment, but the situation may change. Art objects located in the suburbs of Kyiv and Kharkiv may have been lost or significantly damaged since these territories were occupied for a long period and were a zone of active hostilities. The widespread looting and vandalism by Russian forces is a major issue. Hundreds of instances of looting and cruelty committed by the occupying troops have been documented on social media. It can even be assumed that some of the art stolen by Russian soldiers in Ukraine will later appear on sale in Russia. Therefore, it is critical to compile a list of stolen works of art from private collections in order to track them down in Russia. It is already clear that after the war, many pieces of contemporary art will require restoration. It will be possible to assess the total damage to private and museum collections of contemporary art only after the end of the war. Auction Houses Ukrainian art is sold through both international auction houses and several Ukrainian-based auction houses. Goldens auction house (in the past Golden Section) is one of the leading auction houses in Ukraine. It has not held any auctions in Ukraine after the full-scale Russian invasion. In collaboration with the Swiss international auction house Koller they have organised a charity auction of Ukrainian modern art titled ‘Have a heart’, taking place on the platform of the Swiss partner. Koller claims that all of the proceeds will go to the artists who created the works.[30]Goldens has also organised an NFT project to support artists, illustrators, and designers, as well as get money for donations to support the Armed Forces and purchase humanitarian aid. The auction team has announced an open call for everyone to create designs for beads that are transformed into tokens. A collection of NFTs called Namysto (which refers to a piece of traditional necklace jewellery) is published and promoted by the Goldens on the NFT marketplace OpenSea. Percentages of the proceeds go to artists and charities.[31] The Kyiv-based auction house Dukat specialises in Ukrainian books, Ukrainian art of the first half of the 20th century, national unofficial art of the 1950s–1990s, and contemporary art. Their plans had to be postponed because of the war. Recently Dukat has announced a charity auction of a painting called Flowers Grew around the Fourth Block from a series of works by artist Maria Primachenko, dedicated to the Chernobyl tragedy. The painting was presented by the art collector Igor Ponamarchuk, from his family collection. All proceeds will be given to the Serhiy Prytula Charitable Foundation.[32] From 5 to 17 April, the auction house Arsani was planning to hold a pre-auction exhibition ‘Classical and Modern Art’ within the walls of the National Museum of Taras Shevchenko in Kyiv. The auction was supposed to take place online on 16 April.[33] Although the situation in Kyiv was becoming more stable in April, the war was not over yet and these plans were postponed or cancelled. As Arsani is based both in Kyiv and in Kharkiv, we do not have information about the condition of the auction house exhibition space in Kharkiv, where fighting is going on at the moment. During the pandemic and lockdown, an initiative to support artists by the gallerists and collectors Marat Gelman and Yevhen Karas became very popular. This is a group on Facebook named Сіль-Соль (Salt-Salt), an accessible marketplace of contemporary visual art directly from artists in the low-price range. It attracts many young artists and a large audience of buyers due to its affordability and low barriers to entry. This initiative continues working now, and although there might be some delivery delays, artists continue posting their works and receiving demand for them. Salt-Salt has also successfully organised a charity sale of 82 artworks and transferred 200 000 UAH (≈7000 USD) to the fund helping the arm ‘Come Back Alive’.[34] The painting My Hut, My Truth by Maria Primachenko was sold for €110,000 at the Benefit for Ukraine’s People & Culture charity auction in Italy. The starting price was €1000. Among other lots, there was a work by Ukrainian artist Alina Zamanova and works by foreign artists. All proceeds will be sent to help Ukrainian culture; to the Museum Fund of Ukraine, the Maria Primachenko Family Fund, ‘100% of Life’ and others.[35] The Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art (UIMA), located in Chicago, together with the online marketplace Artsy has organised an online auction, ‘Impact: Artists in Support of Refugees from Ukraine’, on April 14, featuring submissions from Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian artists. It aims to raise cultural awareness, fund Ukrainian artists, and provide support relief for refugees fleeing Ukraine. Artsy is donating a portion of the Buyer’s Premium to the organisation in the USA, which provides aid to people affected by the war in Ukraine and gives support to displaced families. Donations collected by UIMA will be distributed to non-profit organisations among which is the Ukrainian Emergency Art Fund.[36] Export Ukraine had a reasonably liberal system for exporting contemporary art objects before the war. Ukraine has no tariffs on the export of works of art less than 50 years old. Special export permits are not required, although the customs authorities require a document confirming that the item is not older than 50 years. This document is issued by art museums in each regional centre and is not difficult to obtain. The delivery of art objects was carried out by many world postal services, as well as local organisations and private contractors. Since the beginning of the war, major global companies have suspended delivery of art objects on the territory of Ukraine. Many purchased items will not be delivered outside of Ukraine for an indefinite period. Victoria Adkozalova, one of the artists who responded to our survey wrote: ‘I gave one of the works bought by a collector from the USA on February 23 to the DHL branch, and, unfortunately, it could not leave the country and stayed in Kyiv’. The problem also arose from the rapid evacuation of private collections that were under the threat of destruction in regions with active hostilities and bordering them. Under these conditions, local companies and private contractors were the fastest to adapt and were able to establish new land routes for the export of art to Europe. Since airmail is not working during the war and sea transportation is blocked, only land routes along government-controlled highways are used. But not everyone can use the services of such logistics structures, as this requires personal contacts and a history of relationships. It also retained the ability to send works of art abroad with the help of the national operator Ukrposhta. But this service has significant restrictions on the dimensions of the sent items. Naturally, in such conditions, there is practically no possibility of full-fledged insurance of art objects. Any sending of items from the occupied territories is not possible. The removal of art objects from the zone of occupation is associated with a great risk for life. Although we are aware of several examples of the private evacuation of work from besieged or occupied cities, those are exceptions. Preservation and destruction of street art The war destroys Ukrainian cities, streets, and houses with shells. Among the affected buildings are universities, theatres, museums, and even residential buildings and hospitals. Our cultural heritage and art are at risk of being destroyed. Street art suffers first because it decorates the exterior and is not protected from vandalism. The murals were not ready for mines, bullets, and aerial bombs. Just like civilians. Some of the works of famous Kharkiv street artist Gamlet Zinkivskyi will no longer be seen. Since 2014, he has completed at least four projects in Mariupol but this city has now been reduced to rubble.[37] Fortunately, most of the artist’s works have survived in his hometown of Kharkiv and we hope they will not be destroyed in future battles in the east of Ukraine.[38] Sculptures located in open spaces are at an increased risk of destruction since they cannot even be moved to the basements of houses. There are many cases of the production of reinforcing structures for outdoor sculptures that could be at greatest risk. These were mostly made by activists who understand the importance of saving cultural heritage. The cultural and educational project ‘Ukrainian Modernism’, dedicated to researching, preserving, and promoting modern architecture and monumental art in Ukraine created an initiative to protect the stained-glass windows of the pearl of Kyiv modernism at the funicular. They raised funds to strengthen all 12 stained glass windows from enemy shelling as they are very vulnerable to shock waves and debris.[39] At the beginning of the war, a portal was created where volunteers leave photographs of cultural objects damaged by shelling. This is called the cultural loss map.[40] It is important because in the future, according to the initiator’s plan, it will be a single reference book for invoicing the Russian Federation for reparations at the end of the war. NFT art The art industry is actively helping Ukraine; it organises projects where all proceeds go to the charities. Several of these projects are based on the sale of NFT art. A project by the Holy Water tech company united 500 Ukrainian artists who created artworks for their charity NFT collection, presented in a virtual exhibition. On 1 April 2022, they donated to Ukraine’s official crypto wallet more than 61 thousand US dollars.[41] A project named ‘Museum of War’ by the Ukrainian blockchain community and the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine also partnered with Ukrainian artists. This project’s goal is to preserve memories of current events, provide information to the digital community, and collect funds to help Ukraine. It is selling NFTs where each token is a combination of news information and an illustration by Ukrainian artists. The money raised will be used to support the Ukrainian army and civilians.[42] The Ukrainian team FFFACE.ME has created a collection of three non-fungible tokens in support of Ukraine. ‘At a time like this, there is a very strong creative impulse. We are aware that today the task of the creative class is not only to support Ukraine financially but also to form a cultural image of the country, which will not only be remembered but will become fashionable. This is how the concept of the Ukrainian Power Artifacts NFT collection came about. In it, each of the lots is literally the object of force in which we put our strength, formed during the bombing, evacuation and psychological tests. Buyers of each of these artefacts will receive this momentum and become stronger, just as the buyer of the original art object receives a part of the author’s soul’, says the team FFFACE.ME.[43] All proceeds from the sale of this collection will be sent to support the Armed Forces. The Ukrainian Emergency Art Fund The non-governmental organisation Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), in partnership with independent Kyiv-based media agency Zaborona, The Naked Room art gallery, and the National Art and Culture Museum Complex Mystetskyi Arsenal established the Ukrainian Emergency Art Fund. It is a very important initiative in dealing with the consequences of the Russian invasion and helping the Ukrainian art community. The fund facilitates support and administers donations offered by international artistic and charity organisations, as well as from private donors. First, it provides vital financial aid for artists and cultural workers who remain in Ukraine and urgently need support to ensure a basic standard of living and security. They intend to support the continuity of research of curators, theoreticians, researchers, and other cultural workers. Then it aims to globally promote contemporary Ukrainian culture as a powerful instrument for the protection of the values of democracy and freedom in the world.[44] Conclusions As our study makes clear, the art industry in Ukraine is now focused on ways to support the country. At this moment there is no emphasis on the economy of the art industry while all agents in the Ukrainian art market have to also think about their future. There are initiatives to help individual Ukrainian artists. Many galleries abroad have organised open calls for Ukrainian artists, they relocate them and exhibit their works in their spaces and at Art Fairs. This benefits artists and foreign galleries, while there is an increasing interest in Ukrainian art and culture. For some artists, during the war, there was an opportunity to express themselves outside of Ukraine, because there has been more interest in the topic of Ukraine in particular and our country in general. This creates new opportunities after the war. Most projects happening now are created in collaboration with international partners. As the Ukrainian art industry consists of a fairly closed society, social ties and trust are required for international projects. In our own experience, such projects are more likely to happen when the parties have already been personally acquainted with each other. Since the two years before the war were overshadowed by the pandemic crisis, participation in international projects such as the art fairs was almost impossible, and therefore international connections between galleries and other art agents became weaker. Because strong connections are essential now, many projects cannot be implemented quickly and efficiently. Domestic primary agents of the art market, the private galleries, struggle now. Most galleries had to stop their exhibitions. When people are worried about their future, customers’ ability to buy art shrinks and the domestic demand for art is predicted to decrease. At the same time, the ability to participate in international events is limited because of travel restrictions. The initiative of the Ukrainian Emergency Art Fund is very important at this moment, but we expect that private galleries will be one of the most affected parties as a result of the war, and some of them will cease to exist. In some cities, they are simply destroyed and their collections are destroyed. Many galleries will also lose their sources of income from sales at exhibitions and art fairs. The situation with regard to the collection of Ukrainian art is likely to change. Ukrainian art will become more interesting and accessible to Western collectors. At the same time, the economic situation will narrow the ability of the domestic collector to buy art and this will negatively affect the domestic art market. There is a problem that Ukrainian art is often sold under the title of Russian art, i.e., in Russian art departments in auction houses. This needs to be changed now, and Ukrainian art has to be identified as a separate segment. Ukrainian art cannot be sold in the auctions under the name or in the section ‘Russian art’, as this violates the definition of an independent and sovereign country. Ukrainian artists are often mislabelled as Russian, especially Ukrainian born artists during the time of the USSR, for example Kazimir Malevich. Malevich called himself a Ukrainian in his diaries.[45] But, as part of the imperial policy, Russia has always tried to appropriate the Ukrainian cultural heritage. During the war, we see another example of Russia’s barbaric attitude towards Ukrainian art and its institutions. We expect that one of the consequences of the war will be the complete emergence of Ukrainian art from the shadow of Russian art and its recognition as national and original. There will also be a process of revision of Ukrainian art and its complete rethinking as an important part of contemporary European art. The war is a powerful cultural phenomenon that will radically change the direction of the art market and contemporary Ukrainian art in general. Depending on the results of the war, the art market can expect either a long stagnation or a rapid renaissance and the emergence of new works and art projects. We believe in victory. The authors of the article are Igor Globa, Maria Sivachenko, and Anastasiia Yatsyna, members of the team of the gallery Portal 11. Portal 11 is an art gallery in the centre of Kyiv, Ukraine and a space for true connoisseurs of fine arts. The mission of the gallery is to exhibit contemporary Ukrainian artworks that will eventually become classics. Gallery projects attract a broad audience and are highlighted in the press. [1] Mariana Chikalo, ‘Opening of a new project by artist and sculptor Astian Rey’ (Lucky Ukraine, 17 February 2022) accessed 15 March 2022. [2] ‘Exhibition by Maksym Mazur “Transliteracija”‘ (Portal 11 Gallery, 21 February 2022) accessed 16 March 2022. [3] A Gavrilyuk, ‘From February 18 to March 17 in the Center for Contemporary Art M17 is an exhibition of Gamlet Zinkivskyi "3652019 +’ (M17 Contemporary Art Center, 2022) accessed 1 April 2022. [4] Gamlet Zinkivskyi, ‘Gamlet remains in Kharkiv. In the spring he will paint new street works in the European city of Kharkiv. The good will win’ (Instagram, 1 March 2022) accessed 1 April 2022. [5] ‘Exhibition by Viktoriia Adkozalova “Shadows of unforgotten ancestors”‘ (Portal 11 Gallery, 24 January 2022) accessed 16 March 2022. [6] ‘The museum exhibition “From the Italian diary” of Ivan Turetskyy’s paintings is open till the 15 of April in Milan’ (Portal 11 Gallery, 6 April 2022) accessed 15 April 2022. [7] ‘Benefit exhibition in support of Ukraine’. (Holešovická Šachta Digital Gallery, 15 March 2022) accessed 16 March 2022. [8] Simon Schuster, ‘A Ukrainian Photographer Documents the Invasion of His Country’ Time (New York, 17 March 2022) accessed 14 April 2022. [9] ‘Patriotic graffiti with cats appeared in Odesa (photo)’ (Ukrainian Information Service, 17 March 2022) accessed 20 April 2022. [10] Katie Campione, ‘‘Go Fuck Yourself’: Ukrainian Soldiers Celebrated as Viral Heroes for Last Words to Russian Warship’ (TheWrap, 25 February 2022) accessed 18 April 2022. [11] Tim Lince, ‘Ukrainian Snake Island soldier seeks trademark for the iconic phrase, as major brand challenges grow in Russia’ (WTR, 17 March 2022) accessed 13 April 2022. [12] Dmitri Ponomarenko, ‘Ukrposhta has started the national selection of illustrations for a postage stamp on the theme "Russian warship, go to x@y", (Ukrainian News, 1 March 2022) accessed 20 April 2022. [13] Tatiana Nechet, ‘Postage stamps «Russian warship, go ...!» and envelopes with special cancellation signed by the author of the legendary phrase were sold at auction for UAH 5 million. – 200 times more expensive than the starting price’ (ITC UA, 22 April 2022) accessed 25 April 2022. [14] ‘A four-thousand-strong demonstration in Warsaw – thousands of bodies on the ground’ (Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego, 2022) accessed 15 April 2022. [15] Emmanuel Wanjala, ‘Stop promising, start acting! Ukrainians to protest for NATO to act on Russia’ (The STAR, 2022) accessed 15 April 2022. [16] Tara Law, ‘The Story Behind Time’s 'Resilience of Ukraine' Cover’ Time (New York, 17 March 2022) accessed 10 April 2022. [17] Brett Sokol, ‘In Miami, a Ukrainian Art Show Becomes Unintentionally Timely’ The New York Times (New York, 28 February 2022) accessed 18 March 2022. [18] Anna Chernenko, ‘We save paintings by Russian artists from their own people - a representative of the Kharkiv Art Museum’ (Hromadske radio, 12 March 2022) accessed 20 April 2022. [19] ‘The Ministry of Culture has not given any orders to Ukrainian museums to act in emergencies or evacuate the collection’ (Hromadske radio, 22 February 2022) accessed 20 March 2022. [20] Kostyantyn Zorkin, ‘HOW ARE YOU’ (Yermilov Centre, 2022) accessed 10 April 2022. [21] ‘In the Kharkiv metro, the art studio has started classes with children who live there because of the war’ (Suspilne Media, 29 March 2022) accessed 10 April 2022. [22] Oksana Kovalenko and Yevhen Spirin, ‘“The Russians are destroying everything. There are no intact houses”. Mykola Khanatov the head of the Popasna Military Administration about life in the almost completely destroyed city’ (Babel, 21 April 2022) accessed 11 April 2022. [23] Hugo Bachega and Orysia Khimiak, ‘Mariupol theatre: ‘We knew something terrible would happen’’ (BBC News, 17 March 2022) accessed 11 April 2022. [24] Sarah Cascone, ‘A Mariupol Museum Dedicated to One of Ukraine’s Most Important Realist Painters Has Reportedly Been Destroyed by Russian Airstrikes’ (Artnet News, 23 March 2022) accessed 16 April 2022. [25] ‘Emergency Fund’ (Tu!, 28 March 2022) accessed 16 April 2022. [26] Vera Perun, ‘In Mariupol Russians rob museums, exhibits taken to Donetsk for an assessment’, - Andryushchenko’ (LB, 26 April 2022) accessed 29 March 2022. [27] ‘Refugee Assistance Center in Adrenaline City’ (MSUMK, 2022) accessed 20 March 2022. [28] ‘‘Art Battalion’ in MSUMK!’ (MSUMK, 2022) accessed 25 March 2022. [29] Olga Klim and Ilona Zakharuk, ‘‘Assortment Room’ helps to evacuate works of art from different cities of Ukraine’ (Suspilne Media, 2 March 2022) accessed 29 April 2022. [30] ‘HAVE A HEART’ (Koller International Auctions, 19 April 2022) accessed 22 May 2022. [31] ‘Namysto’ (OpenSea) accessed 22 May 2022. [32] ‘Charity auction ‘Primachenko flowers for ZSU’’ (Dukat, 2022) accessed 29 April 2022. [33] ‘Arsani Auction House’ accessed 30 March 2022. [34] ‘Saltandpepper’ (Facebook, 2022) accessed 10 April 2022. [35] Victoria Alekseenko, ‘A painting by Maria Primachenko was sold at a charity auction in Italy for €110,000’ (D1, 23 April 2022) accessed 28 April 2022. [36] ‘Impact: Artists in Support of Refugees from Ukraine’ (Artsy, 2022) accessed 14 April 2022. [37] ‘Gamlet Zinkovsky's new work in Mariupol’ (Izolyatsia, 16 December 2015). accessed 14 March 2022. [38] Gamlet Zinkovsky, ‘Map of Murals’ (Kharkiv) accessed 14 April 2022. [39] Ukrainian modernism, ‘Let's protect the stained-glass windows of the Kyiv funicular from enemy shelling!’ (Instagram, 22 March 2022) accessed 22 March 2022. [40] ‘Map of cultural loss’ (Ukraine Cultural Fund, 2022) accessed 27 April 2022. [41] ‘Buy NFTs to Save Ukraine and Stop War’ (Holy Water Tech, 2022) accessed 27 March 2022. [42] ‘THE NFT-MUSEUM of the war of Putin's Russia against Ukraine’ (META History Museum of War, 2022) accessed 27 March 2022. [43] ‘FFFACE.ME has created a collection of three NFTs in support of Ukraine’ (Vogue UA, 15 March 2022) accessed 27 March 2022. [44] ‘Ukrainian Emergency Art Fund’ accessed 25 March 2022. [45] Tetyana Filevska, Kazymyr Malevych: The Kyiv Period, 1928–1930 (Rodovid Press/kmbs 2016).

I became an atheist at the age of eight. After one of my Hebrew-school teachers devoted a 90-minute class to recounting her experiences in a Nazi concentration camp during the Second World War, I went home and read a lengthy encyclopaedia article on Nazi Germany. Within four hours of reading that article, I had irretrievably lost my belief in God. Over the years, my disbelief in God has become even more robust than my disbelief in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy. However, unlike some atheists and most agnostics, I am hardly uninterested in God and religion. For one thing, my attitude toward God is not one of indifference; rather, it is one of revulsion. That attitude stems partly from my systematic study of the Bible for the past 40 years. Although my main areas of scholarly expertise are political and legal and moral philosophy—rather than theology or the philosophy of religion—my principal avocation since the early 1980s has been the writing of a commentary on the Bible. Why would an atheist engage in such an endeavour? I began to read the Bible systematically in early 1982 because I wished to enhance my understanding of philosophy. From the mediaeval period through the early twentieth century, virtually every Western philosopher of any consequence presupposed that his readers were intimately acquainted with the Bible. While studying Philosophy as an undergraduate, I was particularly struck by the fact that nearly all the great figures of the early modern era—Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Baruch Spinoza, George Berkeley, and so forth—were thoroughly grounded in the Scriptures. Their philosophical works invoke Biblical passages and characters with easy familiarity. Even the fervid atheist Friedrich Nietzsche in the nineteenth century displayed an impressive knowledge of the Bible. (Nietzsche’s The Antichrist is a tour de force of Biblical exposition, however far-fetched some of it may be.) Thus, while I was still an undergraduate, I recognized that I could not fully understand many of the premier texts of the Western philosophical tradition without an excellent knowledge of the Scriptures. I began to study the Bible systematically during my first year as a postgraduate. (For the first decade of that study, I devoted 2-3 hours every day to the endeavour. Thereafter, I have devoted 60-90 minutes to it each day.) I had acquired a pretty good knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures as a boy, but now I was setting out to read both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament with the eye of a philosopher. During the first 18 months, I read the Bible from cover to cover three times without writing anything beyond marginal annotations. Thereafter, however, I began to compose a passage-by-passage commentary to make sense of the text as I went along. The commentary—which for the first several years was handwritten—has now grown to approximately 3,600 pages. I have written it purely for my own edification, but over the years I have gradually polished it into something that might eventually be suitable for publication. At very few junctures in my commentary does my atheism become apparent. Poking holes in Biblical claims about God is far too easy and is thus uninteresting. Instead, my commentary seeks to understand those claims from the perspectives of the people who advanced them. I am continually asking why the writer of some book of the Bible would think that the ascription to God of a certain property or command or action or accomplishment is so important. Very often, the answer to the question just broached is that the Scriptural authors were resolutely concerned to differentiate their God from the gods of surrounding peoples. For example, the Torah’s prohibition on boiling a kid in its mother’s milk (Exodus 23:19, 34:26; Deuteronomy 14:21)—a prohibition that is the basis of the strict separation between meat dishes and milk dishes in modern kosher cooking—is best explained by reference to the pagan fertility rites that were widespread in the ancient Middle East. Instead of deriving principally from hygienic considerations or from solicitude for animals, the Torah’s prohibition almost certainly stemmed principally from a determination to distinguish sharply between the Hebrew religion and the neighbouring creeds whose adherents paid homage to fertility goddesses by sacrificing kids and calves in their mothers’ milk. My original aim of improving my understanding of Western philosophy has been realised. Though I do not write on the philosophy of religion, my study of the Bible has significantly shaped my thinking about a number of issues in the areas of philosophy on which I do write. Over the years, however, that original aim has come to be supplemented by other reasons for my avocation as a Biblical scholar. Such a pastime not only improves one’s understanding of Western philosophy, but also greatly enhances one’s understanding of Western culture more broadly. While the Bible has heavily influenced many philosophers, it has likewise heavily influenced countless artists and writers and composers (among others). Some of the richness of Western art and literature and music is lost on anyone who does not possess a good knowledge of the Scriptures. Let me offer a single fine-grained example to underscore this point. In the famous scene in Tess of the d’Urbervilles where Alec d’Urberville rapes or seduces Tess, Thomas Hardy writes as follows: ‘But, might some say, where was Tess’s guardian angel? Where was the providence of her simple faith? Perhaps, like that other god of whom the ironical Tishbite spoke, he was talking, or he was pursuing, or he was on a journey, or he was sleeping and not to be awaked’.[1] Now, unless readers know that the phrase ‘ironical Tishbite’ refers to Elijah, and unless readers are familiar with the story of the confrontation between Elijah and the Baal-worshippers in 1 Kings 18, they are likely to miss the full ironic significance of Hardy’s wording. (Indeed, they will probably be rather puzzled by his wording.) In particular, they will not readily grasp that Hardy in his brief discussion of God’s providence—‘the providence of her simple faith’—was redirecting against God a classic and sardonic expression of disbelief in the existence of an alternative deity. A further benefit of Biblical study lies in the literary magnificence of many parts of the Scriptures. The exquisite story of Joseph and his brothers in the final quarter of Genesis is itself sufficient to ensure the Bible a place among the greatest works of world literature, yet a number of other Biblical narratives—such as the story of David and Absalom, and the Parable of the Prodigal Son—are at almost that same level of supreme excellence. Much of the Bible’s poetry (in Job, quite a few of the Psalms, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, the Song of Solomon, and so forth) is among the finest produced in any language. Thus, although long stretches of the Bible are tedious or repellent or baffling, a student of the Scriptures encounters many literary jewels as well. Familiarity with the Bible broadens one’s mind in a number of respects. Coming to grips with cosmological assumptions and ethical assumptions very different from one’s own is an edifying venture. Moreover, anyone who examines the Bible with intellectual honesty cannot fail to be aware of its many shortcomings, some of which are egregious. One’s awareness of those shortcomings can temper one’s criticism of other religions. Consider, for example, the current propensity of Muslim extremists in various parts of the world to engage in murderous mayhem. On the one hand, the claim that their evil acts of carnage have nothing to do with Islam is simplistic at best. Anyone who has perused the Koran with intellectual honesty will be aware of the hideous passages on which the Islamist fanatics can and do seize in order to ‘justify’ their terrorism. On the other hand, the perception of a basic divide between the Koran and the Bible in this respect is likewise simplistic. The Bible teems with as many ghastly passages as the Koran. It lends itself to being cited in support of iniquities just as readily as does the Koran. Hence, given that there are no grounds for thinking that the sacred texts of Christianity and Judaism are indissolubly linked to terrorism, there are no grounds for any corresponding accusation against the sacred texts of Islam. An acquaintance with the Bible enables one to recognize this point clearly. The abundance of rebarbative passages in the Bible is another reason for atheists to familiarise themselves with it. Although my commentary seldom gives voice to the atheistic repugnance that I feel toward God, my systematic study of the Bible has made me thoroughly familiar with the numerous discreditable aspects of the Biblical texts. Thus, I can retort knowledgeably to believers who suggest that moral principles are in need of God and the Scriptures as their foundations. Even if the correct basic principles of morality were somehow in need of foundations beyond themselves, the Bible would be too nefarious for the purpose. Those principles would not be strengthened by being associated with the genocidal directives of the God of the Hebrew Scriptures, or with the scurrilous fulminations of Christ against his opponents, or with the Stalin-like gloating of the God of the New Testament at the thought that everyone who has not been sufficiently deferential toward Him will suffer torture for all eternity. Lest the foregoing paragraph may seem too glum, I shall conclude with a relatively light-hearted reason for studying the Bible. A survey of the Biblical texts reveals a host of common sayings that have taken on meanings very different from their original meanings. Hence, a knowledge of the Bible is invaluable for anyone inclined to be pedantic. I could offer more than twenty examples of the sayings that I have in mind, but I have space here for only a few. In Deuteronomy 8:3 and in Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels (with Christ’s response to the first temptation), we encounter the aphorism ‘Man does not live by bread alone’. In the present day, that maxim is almost universally taken to mean that bread is necessary but not sufficient for human flourishing. In its original Biblical context, by contrast, the maxim means that bread is sufficient but not necessary for human flourishing. (In Deuteronomy, bread was unnecessary because God sent manna instead; in the gospels, bread was unnecessary because Christ was able to survive on purely spiritual sustenance.) Another expression almost universally used today with a meaning markedly different from its meaning in its original Biblical context is the claim that certain people are—or behave as if they are—‘a law unto themselves’. When such a formulation is invoked today, it is almost always employed disapprovingly to indicate that certain people arrogantly regard themselves as unbound by the legal or moral restrictions that apply to other people. However, when Paul coined that phrase in his Letter to the Romans 2:14, he was using it commendatorily with reference to righteous Gentiles. Those Gentiles conducted themselves in accordance with the moral requirements of God’s Law even though the Law had never been revealed to them through the Scriptures. Such people were not in need of any acquaintance with the Scriptural presentation of the Law, because they were ‘a law unto themselves’. One further example of a saying that has taken on a meaning at odds with its original Biblical meaning is the assertion that ‘the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing’. In contemporary usage, such an assertion indicates that some endeavour or situation has become muddled as a result of a dearth of coordination between different individuals or between different components of an organisation. Quite dissimilar was the message of Christ when he enjoined his followers in the Sermon on the Mount to refrain from making public their charitable deeds: ‘But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you’ (Matthew 6:3-4). Christ was counselling his disciples that they should not ostentatiously exhibit their virtues in order to win the esteem of their contemporaries. Instead, they should be so modestly discreet in their almsgiving that even their left hands would not know what their right hands had doled out. To be sure, the Bible is by no means the only source of commonly misconstrued adages. Shakespeare’s works, which are another preoccupation of mine, are likewise such a source. (For example, Hamlet’s remark about ‘a custom more honoured in the breach than the observance’ is hardly ever quoted in accordance with its original meaning.) Still, precisely because the Bible has wielded such an immense influence on virtually all aspects of Western culture, it is a uniquely rich provenance of sayings that have entered into everyday discourse. And because the Bible today is much more often echoed than read, its sayings are frequently misunderstood. Thus, I recommend Biblical study not only for the serious reasons recounted above, but also because it is a wonderful basis for pedantic one-upmanship! Matthew H Kramer Professor Matthew H Kramer is a legal philosopher and a leading proponent of legal positivism. He is Professor of Legal and Political Philosophy at Churchill College, Cambridge, and heads the Cambridge Forum for Legal and Political Philosophy. [1] Thomas Hardy, Tess d’Urbervilles (Broadview Press 1996) 103.

Analysing the Achievements and Flaws in the EU Copyright Exceptions Domain Copyright exceptions are an important part of international and European copyright frameworks, designed to ensure the balancing of copyright with other fundamental rights and policy objectives. More and more, the increasing use of digital technology has challenged previously accepted copyright norms.[1] As a result, the EU and its Member States alongside many other states have sought to reform and update their laws to meet the challenges posed by a new era of creative works. The domain of copyright exceptions is no different. Ranging from the Information Society (InfoSoc) Directive in 2001[2] to the most recent Digital Single Market (DSM) Directive,[3] the EU has consistently sought to create a more unified and harmonious market ecosystem for intellectual property. These efforts have been targeted at reducing market fragmentation and ensuring the protection of core exceptions to copyright that are grounded in fundamental rights. However, such efforts have not always borne fruit and problems remain. For example, critics point to the limited and inflexible nature of the current framework which results in new technologies being stifled or else being unable to benefit from the protections offered by narrowly-drafted exceptions. In fact, in some cases, the approach taken by the EU in attempting to reform the area of exceptions has counter-intuitively led to more fragmentation of the internal market. This article aims to critically analyse the EU’s policy and legislative approach toward copyright exceptions, examining, with a view to reform, the achievements and shortcomings of the EU’s legislative efforts. For the purposes of this article, the term ‘exceptions’ will be used to refer to provisions within EU and Member State law that refer to similar concepts like limitations, defences, and so forth, although the author acknowledges that these terms can in and of themselves denote a certain preference as to the ideological conception of copyright.[4] It will begin by delving into the core reasoning for the existence of copyright exceptions, exploring the historical context found in the Berne Convention and the broader international and European copyright system. The article shall focus on a number of key exceptions falling within the scope and context of the InfoSoc Directive, using the areas of the ‘three-step test’, parody, private copying and temporary reproduction to illustrate the achievements and flaws within the copyright exceptions framework. The aim is to identify common principles and overall criticisms which pervade the domain of EU copyright exceptions. It will then move to examine the DSM Directive and the relevant achievements and flaws present there. The article will then move to consider the ways in which improvements could be made, including a brief consideration of the benefits of a ‘user right’ framework. Finally, the article will conclude by summarising the broad analysis of the EU copyright exceptions domain, its successes and failings, and the overall impact of such exceptions on the digital and tangible markets. Copyright Exceptions: Rationale and Policy Objectives To contextualise the discussion of copyright exceptions, it is worthwhile to first consider why exceptions are necessary in the first place. One of the most oft-advanced arguments in favour of exceptions is on economic and creative grounds. This argument in essence states that copying is a vital component of almost all creation and innovation, whether it be scientific, academic or purely recreational. Indeed, many services beneficial for knowledge-sharing, like Google Books, make use of copying technology.[5] This is particularly the case in the digital age, where online services like news aggregators, streaming services and meta-aggregation engines all challenge traditional norms in their use of works. While these copy-reliant services use other works, they are absolutely vital in the creation of a pluralistic and dynamic creative economy, one where innovation can thrive.[6] On further market-based grounds, the argument can be made that the use of material and its transformation can also encourage growth for the original work, such as with music sampling.[7] Many of the technologies and innovations today are built upon caching and temporary reproduction exceptions, thereby illustrating the clear necessity of exception in fostering a mature digital market. As a result of these benefits, market and innovation reasons are strongly embedded in the EU’s legal efforts at copyright exception harmonisation and the Union has explicitly acknowledged the benefits of copy-reliant technologies in the preambles to these directives.[8] Moreover, exceptions have their policy rationale firmly grounded in free expression and in related fundamental rights.[9] This line of policy argument in favour of exceptions is often raised in respect of the use of works for satire or parody purposes as well as for enabling access to information to those who are disabled, for instance the making available of materials to the blind.[10] This addition of speech considerations adds a constitutional dimension to any intervention in this area, meaning that competing rights must be weighed in any legislation. Although these rationales are supported by key human rights justifications, the scope of such rationale is narrow, often requiring non-commercial usage or attribution. Free expression is of course not an absolute right and must be balanced with the rights of creators to the benefits and usage of their intellectual property as guaranteed in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.[11] Without doubt, copyright exceptions have a clear and important place in the overall legislative frameworks that underlie the system. It can clearly be observed by examining these policy aims that the goal of copyright exceptions is the balancing of copyright privileges with other rights and objectives. As a result, it is important to analyse the successes and failures of EU copyright exceptions through this lens, identifying if and how the law on exceptions achieves a balancing act between copyright protection and other policy goals. Although nuance is important, for the sake of clarity, the core exception policy rationales for the purposes of this essay can be generally summarised thus: Firstly, the fostering of innovation and growth and the enabling of technological functionality. This goal is inherently linked to high-levels of market integration and the ease of cross-border trade. Secondly, the safeguarding of fundamental rights, particularly free expression albeit with the balancing of said rights with intellectual property protections. Having now established and mapped out the key policy objectives of the EU copyright exceptions regime, it is possible to evaluate effectively the impact that has been had by the various interventions into the domain. Copyright Exceptions in European Law: Vertical to Horizontal Development Copyright exceptions have a long history and can be traced far back. The Berne Convention, for instance, contains only one mandatory exception, specifically regarding quotation from works that have been made available lawfully to the public and only where that use is fair and not in excess of what is necessary.[12] Aside from that specific mandatory exception, all others are optional for contracting states, for instance in respect of teaching and research.[13] The test is also found in the TRIPS agreement[14] and in the World Copyright Treaty.[15] When considering copyright in the EU, it is vitally important to consider the drafting background and policy rationales that informed the creation of key legislative provisions. Prior to the introduction of the InfoSoc Directive, harmonisation of the copyright system across the EU was undertaken on a relatively piecemeal basis, generally targeted at very specific areas.[16]The first such efforts at harmonising exceptions came in the form of the Software Directive[17] with the Database Directive[18] following on in 1996. Both of these Directives contained mandatory exceptions that served to facilitate key policy goals in these specific areas, namely the encouragement of growth and innovation in these two technological areas. Although the concept of the digital single market is a relatively recent policy initiative, the idea of a more harmonised ecosystem for digital trade in the internal market is of much more substantial vintage. This is seen in the Commission’s move from piecemeal reform to a more concerted effort which manifests in the InfoSoc Directive. In essence, this was a move from vertical to horizontal legislative initiatives, aimed at ensuring the harmonisation of the internal market. The InfoSoc Directive: Lessons from Copyright Exceptions The InfoSoc Directive aimed to be a more ambitious attempt at modernising the copyright system, ensuring its suitability for the digital age. In particular, it came about as a response to concerns about the lack of harmonisation that existed between Member States in respect of artistic and literary works, something initially sparked in the Patricia decision.[19] The most key change to the framework was the introduction of a closed list of exhaustive exceptions.[20] However, it should be noted from the outset that only one, temporary reproduction, was a mandatory exception. The following sections will now analyse key exceptions and provisions, in essence using them as examples to illustrate the broader successes and failures of the InfoSoc Directive’s approach to copyright. Article 5(5) and the Three-Step Test Before launching into an analysis of the specific exceptions within the overall domain, it is useful to first consider one of the major early achievements of the InfoSoc Directive in achieving the key goals of EU copyright policy. The notion of the ‘three-step test’ is an important mainstay of the copyright system. The test originates from the Berne Convention’s 1967 revision.[21] It is set out as follows: It shall be a matter for legislation in the countries of the Union to permit the reproduction of such works in certain special cases, provided that such reproduction does not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work and does not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the author.[22] The test essentially was designed to act as a ‘catch-all’ provision to limit the scope of available exceptions to the reproduction right, something textually evident above.[23] The test was included in both TRIPS and the WIPO Copyright Treaty, with its aim being to act as a criterion for consideration in analysing compliance of all national exceptions.[24] Article 5(5) of the InfoSoc Directive formally imports and establishes the test within the EU legal order. Mazziotti notes that the inclusion of the ‘Three-Step Test’ in Article 5(5), and therefore specifically in EU law, constitutes a remarkable step toward the harmonisation of copyright exceptions within the Union.[25] The inclusion of the test ensures that national courts are steered toward a uniform application of copyright exception jurisprudence.[26] Without doubt, one of the key achievements in this regard has been the inclusion of the test, not only in mere international law but as a key part of the EU’s copyright framework, meaning it benefits from the doctrine of supremacy in its applicability. The imposition of the test helps to guide national courts in their adjudication, ensuring the harmonised application of the test across the EU and safeguarding against the risk of fragmentation arising from differing interpretation. Overall, the inclusion of the test in the InfoSoc Directive alongside the CJEU’s guidance has helped to cement the hard limits of copyright exceptions within the EU copyright framework. It is submitted that in this respect, Article 5(5) represents a major achievement in the domain of EU copyright exceptions. The fact that the ‘three-step test’ is now universally applied and interpreted across Member States serves one of the key policy objectives in this area, namely the harmonisation of exceptions across the Union. This positively impacts the market environment by ensuring consistency for creators, rights-holders, and users. The InfoSoc Directive’s Parody Exception: Striking A Balance One of the key areas where there has been achievement in the domain of EU copyright exceptions is in relation to parody works. The area of parody is one of the key collision points between intellectual property rights and fundamental rights, namely free expression.[27] As discussed above, it is important for legislators and the courts to strike a balance between these two categories of rights in order to protect both creators and users. It is important to note that in spite of the role of fundamental expression rights in the rationale for this exception, EU law does not conceive of this exception as a type of users’ right.[28] As such, this does not grant an actionable right in parody works but rather acts to permit an activity that would normally be infringement.[29] Parody by its very nature poses major problems from a copyright standpoint. Generally speaking, parody requires some form of a riff being made on a pre-existing work, meaning that some level of copying or infringement is essentially inherent in the creation of parody works.[30] It is for this reason that parody is not found as an explicitly acceptable ground under the Berne Convention[31] and Ricketson suggests that the provision of such a ground poses valid concerns for the EU’s compliance with the Berne Conventions obligations.[32] It is submitted that a parody exception is in keeping with the Berne Convention, insofar as it should be seen as constituting a special case not overly prejudicial to authors in accordance with Article 9(2) and thus compliant with the ‘three-step test’.[33] This is especially so given the free expression rationale and the safeguards against abuse present in European interpretation of this exception. Notwithstanding the lack of clarity regarding the Berne Convention, parody, pastiche and satire are specially recognised as exceptions to copyright in the InfoSoc Directive. Article 5(3)(k) of the Directive grants an exception to reproduction rights for parody works. The CJEU provided considerable guidance on the interpretation of the parody exception in the case of JohanDeckmyn and another v Helena Vandersteen and others (Deckmyn).[34] The instant case involved calendars that were produced by the first named party, a politician from the far-right Belgian political party, Vlaams Belang. The calendar’s cover comprised a parodied image based on a comic book drawing by Mr Vandersteen, which depicted the mayor of Ghent showering coins onto the ground for immigrants. As a result, the heirs of Mr Vandersteen launched proceedings for copyright infringement. In its preliminary reference, the Belgian court asked the CJEU for guidance in relation to whether parody constituted an autonomous concept in EU law and whether it was required to have certain characteristics to benefit from protection.[35] The Court held that, in order to satisfy the harmonisation goals in the Directive, the provision must be given “an autonomous and uniform interpretation throughout the European Union, having regard to the context of the provision and the objective pursued by the legislation in question.”[36] Jacques notes the strong emphasis placed by the Court on the nature of parody as an autonomous concept, ensuring the uniformity of its interpretation across Member States.[37] The Court further decided that permissible parody must display its own original character, be reasonably attributed to a person aside from the author of the original work, and also relate to or mention the source of the parody.[38] The test adopted in this instance clearly is not predicated on any element of the transformative nature of the parody work, which can be contrasted to the position internationally, for instance in the US.[39] However, the CJEU does require that the parody have an element of humour, which Karapapa notes is problematic for free expression, especially in a digital context.[40] Overall, however, it is submitted that the case of parody provides a good example of the achievements present in the EU’s approach to copyright exceptions. Through its decisive and rounded judgment in Deckmyn, the CJEU has acted in many ways as the driver of European copyright policy objectives. Its strong emphasis on the autonomous conception of parody can be observed as a clear indication of the Court’s desire to advance the harmonisation objectives of the Directive. While a preference is obviously present for better legislative provision, the Court’s emphasis on the core policy objectives ensures the success of this exception. Private Copying: Disparity and Discord in the Internal Market One of the best examples of where (due to the lack of mandatory exceptions) the degree of choice is left up to Member States is the issue of private copying exceptions. This area has generated a degree of debate in academic circles.[41] Private copying is set out in Article 5(2)(b) of the InfoSoc Directive.[42] It allows for a natural person to copy a work, provided it is done so in a non-commercial way and that the rights-holder receives ‘fair compensation’.[43] Member States can therefore create levies, allowing them to choose the arrangement of the scheme, the level of fair compensation to be paid out and, indeed, consider how harm is caused to right-holders in this situation.[44] Where private copying is an exception, a lack of fair compensation requires Member States to phase out levies in favour of technological solutions, ie DRM technologies.[45] While the level of fair compensation was largely left to the discretion of the Member States, the CJEU clearly identified it as an autonomous concept in EU law.[46] In Padawan, the CJEU held that as a result, uniformity was required amongst all states that had implemented the exception regardless of the Directive’s granting of derogation in this respect.[47] The administration of these levying systems has also raised a number of issues ranging from intermediary costs to lack of efficiency in collecting agencies.[48] It has also led to a great deal of legal action in which key clarification has been needed such as to whether national budget provision was acceptable[49] and other specific administrative details.[50] In many ways, the private copying exception acts as a case study in the risk of fragmentation that comes with the à la carte approach adopted in the InfoSoc Directive. It perfectly encapsulates the contradictions present in the internal market logic, where one private copying use can be totally legal in one Member State subject to fees while completely prohibited in another Member State. Similarly, the decision as to which devices should be subject to levies also was left to the Member State, meaning that the administration of levies will be localised to that state, thus creating a fragmented market. Indeed, even the levies charged vary widely between Member States, creating confusion and disparity, which serves to complicate cross-border digital trade. In spite of the CJEU’s interventions to provide clarity, the impact of non-mandatory exceptions is illustrated clearly in this example, highlighting one of the copyright exception domain’s most problematic flaws. Interpretation and Flexibility from the CJEU Moving on from specific exceptions, on a more general level it can be seen that the CJEU has in many cases acted as a driving force behind the harmonisation of exceptions, a fundamental aim of EU copyright policy in this domain. Another such example of this role can be seen in the area of interpretation under the InfoSoc Directive, specifically in regard to exceptions. There exists in the domain of copyright exceptions the general principle that any exceptions provided must be interpreted by the courts in a strict way. This has been acknowledged by the CJEU in a number of decisions.[51] The Court’s interpretative role was also seen in the substantial jurisprudence arising out of the temporary reproduction exception.[52] There, a strict interpretation was identified as being vital to harmonisation, and the aim was to facilitate the operation of new technologies which relied on such an exception to exist. However, in general, the InfoSoc Directive aims to strike a balance between rights-holders’ interests and those of users, seen for instance in Recital 31. That Recital mandates that exceptions should be effective in achieving their stated aim.[53] This means that the strict interpretation normally applied can be tempered to allow an exception to fulfil its purpose. Further precision has been added to this by the CJEU’s jurisprudence, most notably in the Painer decision.[54] This case involved the claimant, Ms Painer, a photographer whose photographic portraits of a missing girl were used in newspapers without her consent. In interpreting the quotation exception, the Court held that the strict interpretation can give way to a more purposive understanding of the provision which strikes a better balance between copyright and free expression. As was further noted in the aforementioned Deckmyn decision, the strict interpretation cannot be allowed to make the exception redundant. Although the stricter interpretation errs on the side of protecting the rights-holders as per the general principle, the Court acknowledged that a risk was posed to the functionality of the exception if the interpretation was too rigid.[55] Thus, it held, the correct approach was to allow the exception to fulfil its policy purpose. What these judgments illustrate is the CJEU’s overall desire to adopt a more purposive approach, with the broader aim of protecting exceptions and the policy objectives they pursue. While the argument can certainly be made that the EU approach to copyright exceptions is overly strict and rigid, this is an example of how flexibility from the courts can best advance the fundamental aims of copyright policy, namely in facilitating new technological growth.[56] The DSM Directive: Exceptions for a Mature Digital Market While the InfoSoc Directive was not the only update to copyright law at a European level, in many ways copyright remained fairly static even in the face of a rapidly changing digital economy. In the realm of exceptions, one example is the Orphan Works Directive[57] which simplified and harmonised the system for the use of orphan works across the Union, although it is still subject to substantial academic criticism.[58] Overall, however, with unprecedented technological advancements, the proliferation of online content sharing and an explosion in the popularity of user-generated content, it was clear that updates were seriously needed to the copyright framework. After over a decade of policy considerations, the DSM Directive aims to update copyright in the EU, including in the area of exceptions. For example, Article 3 of the DSM Directive provides for a mandatory exception in respect of text and data mining, one which previously existed only in domestic legislation.[59] One of the key benefits of this exception is that it is mandatory, ensuring that lawful users (i.e., researchers and universities) can benefit from their work across all Member States.[60] Another area where the DSM Directive brings some clarity is the cross-border online teaching exception, which previously lacked harmonisation and created much legal uncertainty for teachers with resultant discord for the internal market in that area.[61] Again, it is posited that one of the primary benefits to be found here is the fact that this exception is mandatory, ensuring consistency and legal certainty. Unfortunately, there are concerns about the impact that the DSM Directive will have on freedom of expression. Article 17 of the DSM Directive, in practice, requires online content-sharing service providers to obtain authorisation from rights-holders for user content that makes use of copyrighted works based on the designation of their activities as being ‘communication to the public’.[62] However, in order to know that user content contains copyrighted works, these services will have to engage in oversight which enables them to act accordingly.[63] The Article thus seemingly creates an obligation to monitor or filter content, although bizarrely this would contradict Article 17(8)’s exemption from general monitoring.[64] This is something which will inevitably be performed using algorithmic moderation systems.[65] The use of algorithmic or artificial intelligence-based content moderation as envisaged under the directive arguably places many of the expression-based exceptions at risk, given the lack of nuance that can often be observed in AI systems. For instance, one can easily imagine an algorithm having difficulty establishing whether a piece of parody content is unique enough to avoid being removed. While there may be the opportunity to appeal, it is argued that such measures will invariably have a chilling effect on free expression.[66] Such a result is therefore a clear indication in the failure of the legislation to safeguard the raison d'être of the parody exception.[67] While some exceptions are carved out, it remains to be seen how effective they will prove and whether the parody exception can be protected in this new regime.[68] Overall, the DSM Directive provides a number of new and necessary exceptions that fundamentally serve the aims of EU copyright policy. There certainly are flaws that underlie the system generally but it is argued that several of the new inclusions are welcome additions. Critical Analysis and Opportunities for Reform While it might appear that the harmonisation achieved in respect of exceptions is substantial, in fact the overall impact is more modest. The fact that many of the exceptions are optional has meant that a contradiction exists between the stated policy goals of the legislation[69] and the actual outcome that has occurred as a result. Indeed, a large degree of disparity exists between domestic copyright laws across the Member States more broadly.[70] One of the lessons that can be drawn from analysing the provisions under EU copyright law is that the failure to provide for mandatory exceptions has led to divergence and discord for the market, something clearly evident from the private copying exception. While the development of an exhaustive list of copyright exceptions is indeed an achievement in the harmonisation of this area of law, unfortunately the failure to make the exceptions mandatory undermines that achievement.[71] It is argued that the key failure of exception policy is the lack of mandatory exceptions which has caused numerous issues. In general, future reforms to the area of copyright exceptions would be well served by ensuring that they are mandatory and that the choice offered to Member States to derogate is severely reduced. This would help to prevent fragmentation within the digital single market and provide clarity to creators and users, thereby allowing for innovation and growth in line with broader policy objectives. It also would ensure universal protection of free expression rights, without the need for judicial intervention to clarify the area. One possibility for truly harmonised reform would be the introduction of a European copyright code, one that is mandatory and comprehensive. The author is sceptical as to the feasibility of such a proposal. Arguably, many of the issues identified throughout the areas considered above could be remedied by a radical shift in the conception of exceptions. One possible way for this to occur would be through the reform of the exceptions system to provide for a broad user rights norm that would grant flexibility and user-based enforceability to the current domain.[72] Mazziotti argues that shifting from a system of exceptions toward a system of user rights would help to better balance the rights of copyright holders and those of end-users.[73] He envisages categories of non-waivable and harmonised user rights that fall within the broader fair use structure, overall serving the purposes of market integration.[74] While it is not possible in the scope of this essay to engage in a broader discussion about the need for a shift to a user rights framework, the author is of the view that this would be a positive way to ensure that copyright remains balanced in the digital age and it would safeguard a rights-based approach. Furthermore, a mandatory system of user rights would enable a smoother harmonisation, limiting the ability for Member States to derogate too widely and thereby undermine a core policy objective. Nonetheless, while the DSM’s provisions seem to take a step in the right direction, it can be observed that the copyright exceptions system currently in place is a patchwork of measures, each with achievements and flaws. While the achievements have served the policy goals well, the flaws have harmed the internal market and hindered harmonisation. Conclusion In conclusion, it is clear that in many ways the domain of copyright exceptions is a mixed bag with clear successes and failures evident in legislation and case law. The core aims of the exceptions are to further enhance the growth of innovation and growth while also protecting fundamental rights that could be restricted by strict insistence on copyright protections. Intrinsic to these goals has been the harmonisation of copyright exceptions in order to provide clarity and legal certainty to rights-holders and end-users alike. In specific areas, it is apparent that the domain of copyright has achieved successes. This is especially the case regarding the inclusion of the ‘three-step test’ within Article 5(5) which ensures the uniformity of interpretation across the Member States. Furthermore, the parody exception illustrates that a balance can be struck between rights within the scope of the InfoSoc Directive. However, while there are successes, shortcomings are also present in the framework. One of the key failures is the complete absence of more mandatory exceptions, which leaves the system for copyright exceptions largely fragmented and lacking in certainty. This problem is best showcased in the area of private copying, where the non-mandatory character of that exception has led to a broad divergence in its application. This lack of clarity invariably has impacts on the integrity of the single market, both in a digital and physical sense. The unfortunate contradiction is that exceptions, which are designed to ensure stronger and more dynamic markets, end up causing fragmentation and weakening the efficacy of cross-border market exchanges of cultural and creative works. On a general level, it can be observed that the CJEU has time and again been the driver of copyright exceptions policy, reiterating the fundamental balance that must be achieved between copyright and the objectives of exceptions. Finally, it is submitted that the DSM Directive aims to take copyright policy in general into a more innovative and technologically advanced age. While the introduction of new exceptions for text/data mining among others are welcomed, concerns remain from an expression-based perspective about the risks that Article 17 may pose. Without doubt, copyright exceptions have a vital role to play in maintaining the overall functionality of the copyright system. Indeed, it is argued that this is especially the case in the digital market where exceptions are absolutely vital to enable the growth and development of innovative creative industries. It is argued that reforms are needed in the copyright system to best ensure that the EU’s key goals are met and that exceptions, contained within a well-designed framework, can serve as the counterweight to intellectual property rights, thus enabling an innovative marketplace and the safeguarding of rights. Daniel Mooney Daniel Mooney LL.B. (NUI), is an LL.M. Candidate in Trinity College Dublin, specialising in the area of intellectual property and information technology law. His research interests include platform governance, copyright, technology regulation and data protection among others. His work has previously been published in the Trinity College Law Review, De Lege Ferenda, and the Eagle Gazette. [1] See for instance Matthew Sag, ‘Copyright and Copy-Reliant Technology’ (2009) 103 Northwestern University Law Review 1607. [2] Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society, Official Journal L 167, (herein ‘InfoSoc Directive’). [3] Directive (EU) 2019/790 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market and amending Directives 96/9/EC and 2001/29/EC (Text with EEA relevance.) PE/51/2019/REV/1 OJ L 130, 17.5.2019 (herein, ‘DSM Directive’). [4] Annette Kur, ‘Of Oceans, Islands, and Inland Water - How Much Room for Exceptions and Limitations Under the Three-Step Test?’ (Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property, Competition & Tax Law Research Paper Series No. 08-04, 2008) accessed 1 December 2021. [5] For a critical analysis see Pamela Samuelson ‘Google Book Search and the Future of Books in the Cyberspace’ (2009) 94 Minnesota Law Review 1308, 1353. [6] Stavroula Karapapa, Defences to Copyright Infringement (1st edn, Oxford University Press 2020) 4. [7] Mike Schuster, David Mitchell, Kenneth Browne, ‘Sampling Increases Music Sales: An Empirical Copyright Study’ (2019) 56(1) American Business Law Journal 177. [8] See for instance InfoSoc Directive Recital 4 and DSM Directive Recitals 2, 5 and 18 etc. [9] See European Convention on Human Rights (1950), Article 10. [10] Directive (EU) 2017/1564 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 September 2017 on certain permitted uses of certain works and other subject matter protected by copyright and related rights for the benefit of persons who are blind, visually impaired or otherwise print-disabled and amending Directive 2001/29/EC on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society OJ L 242. [11] Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union OJ C 326, 26.10.2012, Article 17(2). [12] Tanya Aplin and Jennifer Davis, Intellectual Property Law: Texts, Cases and Materials (2nd edn, Oxford University Press 2013) 203. [13] Berne Convention for The Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (Paris Text 1971), Article 10(2). [14] Agreement of Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, Article 13. [15] World Copyright Treaty, Article 10. [16] Annette Kur and Thomas Dreier, European Intellectual Property Law: Texts, Cases and Materials (1st edn, Elgar Publishing 2013) 270. [17] Directive 2009/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 on the legal protection of computer programs, OJ L 111, 5.5.2009. [18] Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 1996 on the legal protection of databases OJ L 77, 27.3.1996. [19] Case C-341/87 EMI Electrola v Patricia [1989] ECR 79 para 11. [20] InfoSoc Directive, Article 5. [21] Berne Convention for The Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (Paris Text 1971), Article 9(2). [22] ibid. [23] Karapapa (n 4) 134. [24] Mihaly Ficsor, The Law of Copyright and the Internet: the 1996 WIPO Treaties , their interpretation and implementation (Oxford University Press, 2002) 521. [25] Giuseppe Mazziotti, EU Digital Copyright Law and the End-User (1st edn, Springer 2008) 84. [26] ibid 85. [27] Karapapa (n 4) 169. [28] Sabine Jacques, The Parody Exception in Copyright Law (1st edn, Oxford University Press 2019) para 2.2. [29] ibid. [30] For further see Karapapa (n 4) 170-1. [31] Although see Article 9(2). [32] Sam Ricketson, WIPO Study on Limitations and Exceptions of Copyright and Related Rights in the Digital Environment (SCCR/9/7, WIPO 2003) 72. [33] Jacques (n 28) para 2.4.1. [34] Case C‑201/13 Johan Deckmyn and Vrijheidsfonds VZW v Helena Vandersteen and Others [2014] ECLI:EU:C:2014:2132 [35] ibid para 13. [36] ibid para 16. [37] Sabine Jacques, ‘Are national courts required to have an (exceptional) European sense of humour?’ (2015) 37(3) European Intellectual Property Review 134, 135. [38] Case C‑201/13 Johan Deckmyn and Vrijheidsfonds VZW v Helena Vandersteen and Others [2014] ECLI:EU:C:2014:2132, para 33. [39] Campbell v Acuff-Rose Music Inc 510 US 569 (1994) (USA). [40] Karapapa (n 4) 175. [41] DigitalEurope, Private Copying: Assessing Actual Harm and Implementing Alternative Systems to Device- Alternative Systems to Device-Based Copyright Levies (Digital Europe, Brussels 2015) 4 accessed 11 December 2021. [42] InfoSoc Directive, Article 5(2)(b). [43] ibid. [44] Giuseppe Mazziotti, Copyright in the EU Digital Single Market (CEPS 2013) 97. [45] ibid. [46] C‑467/08 Padawan SL v Sociedad General de Autores y Editores de España (SGAE) [2010] ECLI:EU:C:2010:620 [47] Ibid, para 33-37. [48] Mazziotti (n 44) 103. [49] It wasn’t - C-470/14 EGEDA and Others [2016] ECLI:EU:C:2016:669. [50] C-572/13 Hewlett-Packard Belgium SPRL v Reprobel SCRL [2015] ECLI:EU:C:2015:750. [51] See for instance C-435/12) ACI Adam BV v Stichting de Thuiskopie and Stichting Onderhandelingen Thuiskopie vergoeding [2014] ECLI:EU:C:2014:254 at para 23. [52] See for example Case C-5/08 Infopaq International A/S v Danske Dagblades Forening [2009] ECLI:EU:C:2009:465; Case C-302/10 Infopaq International A/S v Danske Dagblades Forening [2012] EU:C:2012:16; C-429/08 Football Association Premier League and Others [2011] ECR I-9083 [53] InfoSoc Directive, Recital 31. [54] Case C-145/10 Eva-Maria Painer v Standard VerlagsGmbH and Others [2013] ECLI:EU:C:2013:138 [55] Case C‑201/13 Johan Deckmyn and Vrijheidsfonds VZW v Helena Vandersteen and Others [2014] ECLI:EU:C:2014:2132 at 14, 23. [56] Asta Tūbaitė-Stalauskienė, ‘EU Copyright Law: Developing Exceptions and Limitations Systematically – An Analysis of Recent Legislative Proposals’ (2018) 11(2) Baltic Journal of Law and Politics 162. [57] Directive 2012/28/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 on certain permitted uses of orphan works Text with EEA OJ L 299, 27.10.2012. [58] Elenora Rosati, ‘The Orphan Works Directive, or throwing a stone and hiding the hand’ (2013) 8(4) Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice 303. [59] For example, the Irish Copyright and Other Intellectual Property Law Provisions Act 2019 s14. [60] DSM Directive, Article 3(1). [61] Tūbaitė-Stalauskienė (n 56) 163-4. [62] DSM Directive, Article 17(1). [63] Celine Castnets-Renard, ‘Algorithmic Content Moderation on Social Media in EU Law: Illusion of Perfect Enforcement’ (2020) 2 U. Ill. J.L. Tech. & Pol'y 283, 297. [64] Indeed, this is being disputed in legal action by Poland, see Michaela Cloutier, ‘Poland's Challenge to EU Directive 2019/790: Standing up to the Destruction of European Freedom of Expression’ (2021) 125(16) Dickinson Law Review 161, 187. [65] See Youtube’s Content ID system: Using Content ID (Youtube 2020) Accessed 10 December 2020. [66] Timothy Chung, ‘Fair Use Quotation Licenses: A Private Sector Solution to DMCA Takedown Abuse on YouTube’ (2020) 44(1) Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts 69. [67] See the cautionary commentary in Deckmyn. [68] Castnets-Renard (n 63) 283, 301. [69] See generally InfoSoc Directive Recitals 1, 4, 6, 7, 9 etc. [70] Christophe Geiger and Franziska Schönherr, ‘Defining the scope of protection of copyright in the EU: The need to reconsider the acquis regarding limitations and exceptions’ in Tatiana Synodinou (ed), Codification of European Copyright Law: Challenges and Perspectives (Kluwer Law International 2012) 142. [71] Bernd Justin Jütte, Reconstructing European Copyright Law For The Digital Single Market: Between Old Paradigms and Digital Challenges (1st edn, Nomos 2017) 244. [72] Tūbaitė-Stalauskienė (n 56) 174. [73] Mazziotti (n 25) 288. [74] ibid 289.

Acknowledgements I would like to begin by acknowledging that the land within which I wrote this research paper is Mi’Kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq people. This territory is covered by the ‘Treaties of Peace and Friendship’ which the Mi’kmaq Wəlastəkwiyik (Maliseet) and Passamaquoddy Peoples first signed with the British Crown in 1726. These treaties sought to establish the rules for an ongoing relationship between nations based on respect, not to deal in the surrender of land and resources but in fact to recognize Mi’kmaq Wəlastəkwiyik (Maliseet) title and guarantee their right to livelihood on their land. In the ensuing and continuing years of colonial violence, oppression, and genocide, settlers have actively failed to recognize these treaties and their responsibilities to the peoples whose land they now inhabit as well as to the land itself. Acknowledging territory and Indigenous communities must take place within the larger context of genuine and ongoing work to forge real understanding and cooperation to challenge the ongoing legacies of colonialism. We are all Treaty People. It is important to understand that I am a settler, and therefore my positionality in this research is not from an Indigenous perspective and neither is my interlocutor. While there is much to learn from a critical examination of settler movements within reconciliatory efforts, we must always ensure that we are empowering and frontlining centring Indigenous voices in these conversations. A Note on Language The work of reconciliation asks of us to engage our own language for vestiges of colonial ideology. Anthropology teaches us that our linguistic practices frame the ways in which we think about the world. Research and scholarship, therefore, must account for the implicit and explicit assumptions nascent in the words we use. To begin, the term ‘Indigenous’ is frequently utilized to refer to the original inhabitants of colonized lands, whereby Indigenous peoples are marginalized, exploited, and/or oppressed by the politically dominant population.[1] In this article, I use the term ‘Indigenous’ to refer to the First Peoples living within what are now Canadian borders, who are distinguished from the settlers who arrived in the last five centuries. Although this term is slightly ambiguous and controversial, as it is an umbrella term for a large group of sovereign and unique nations, it is nonetheless useful for identifying patterns that affect the way gallery spaces treat the heritage of colonized peoples. As such, I utilize ‘Indigenous’ to address Indigenous groups as a collective, and wherever possible use Nation-specific terms. My research deals with considerations of gallery practices—specifically the politics of the display of objects. Much research within museology and gallery studies utilizes the language of artifact when referring to those objects of display. I will not do so. Within gallery spaces, artifact is a term that often denotes an object observed: something that is likely found, studied, and ultimately displayed. It makes the object into the things observed by the actor of that encounter. To utilize this language—the term artifact—in my opinion, aligns the collected object with certain rhetorics and curation which are often at odds with the object itself. I will be employing the term ‘object’ to denote their ‘ontological resist[ance to] the curatorial and its apparatus’.[2] Although the language of objects directly objectifies, it does so in an explicit and direct manner that I appreciate. The process of objectification is present in the term itself, and so this process should be foremost in our thoughts when we speak of these displayed objects. With both reference and reverence to their resistance and the processes they have likely undergone, my research speaks of objects—though the term artifact will still be seen in quotations or reference to literature, though I italicize this term to emphasize the distance between the subject in question and the ways one intuits its meaning through the language of artifact. My analysis and findings take up and further explore the language of artifacts and objects. Introduction Anthropological and art historical galleries are critical pedagogical sites. They are symbolic depositories of cultural memory: the autobiography of dominant culture. Galleries, in this way, function as societal institutions of the validation and dissemination of knowledge and human experience as it manifests in art, as well as cultural and natural history objects.[3] The valuation of the gallery or museum space, its praise as one of if not the most trustworthy arbiters and sources of truth, brings urgency to the question of what it says and how it says it.[4] The examination of gallery practices is an especially pertinent concern as galleries have entered an era of reconciliation with Indigenous communities—a time in which the gallery and those who operate within it are asked to challenge their tacit modes of encounter with objects, as well as the ideas and people from which the objects originate, in an attempt to decolonize the space. I make reference here specifically to Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which calls for a review of museum policies and practices with the intention of shoring up the continued legacies of colonial violence which insulate themselves within gallery walls.[5] In other words, anthropologist James Clifford diagnosed the gallery space as a ‘contact zone’ in colonial encounters—a crucial stage upon which the dialogue of reconciliation must be done.[6] Critically, this location possesses its own social criterion: tacit modes of encounter that historically excluded and superseded both the needs and desires of Indigenous communities. The requirement of this era, as well as the focus of my research, is to locate systems and structures which uphold colonialism or otherwise impede decolonization efforts in our institutions in particular—the gallery space in specific—and our social relations in general. The reconciliatory effort my research examines are collaborative exhibitions, where settler curators and Indigenous knowledge keepers cohabitate the gallery space and create together the exhibition and display of objects. My research investigates the hegemonic perspective within the gallery encounter, which is challenged by this new collaborative way of ‘doing’ within the gallery. Reconciliatory practices ask of the non-indigenous, settler perspective, who historically dominated the gallery space and the objects within, to make room for another voice to speak, and further to challenge their tacit assumptions and practices within the gallery space. In my research, I interrogate this dynamic by asking: what are the implications of tacit curatorial practices? How do non-indigenous or settler curators change their visual practices when handling and exhibiting Indigenous objects? Further, what are the systemic barriers that they encounter when attempting to decolonize their role in the gallery? Through a critical discussion of a variety of collaborative exhibition case studies, and gallery didactic label analysis, in conversation with a semi-structured interview with a settler curator of a Canadian museum engaged in collaborative exhibitions with Indigenous knowledge keepers, my research seeks to investigate the dynamics of decolonization and repatriation within the gallery on the part of the hegemon, seeking to illuminate the intricacies of these interactive encounters. Theoretical Framework, or, Get Your Bearings The Task of the Gallery A necessary question to begin with is, of course, what was and is happening in the gallery that needs to be challenged and decolonized? What precisely are these tacit modes of encounter that are so problematic? Here, Brian O’Doherty’s analysis of the gallery proves useful. In his 1976 work Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space, O’Doherty analyzes the relationship between aesthetics, economy, and social context to understand what he describes to be the confrontational nature of the gallery encounter. Specifically, O’Doherty examines the influence that these spaces—or ‘the white cube’—produce over both an artist’s work and the viewer of said work, identifying overtones of control and patronization at the centre of the gallery encounter. He likens the gallery to a church—an institution of power that speaks with great authority—subsuming all those who enter into its grammar, or its ‘way of seeing’. O’Doherty writes: ‘[w]e give up our humanness and become the cardboard spectator with the disembodied eye. For the sake of the intensity of the separate and autonomous activity of the Eye, we accept a reduced level of life and self’.[7] This reduction is the crux of the gallery encounter. Indeed, to display an object is frequently to supplant its original context, utility, and relationality for cold, steely walls with the occasional small textual blurb or video presenting an idea of what was lost. As a sacred space, the gallery removes objects from any aesthetic or historical context. The meaning of the object is then primarily directed by its curation, by the autonomous eye of the gallery, in this disembodied reduction that O’Doherty speaks of. As a contact zone, it is vital that the gallery facilitate, or hold, multiple voices and perspectives instead of favouring one and silencing the other(s). Decolonization efforts within the gallery space can and should be understood, in part, as attempts to mitigate this power dynamic, or monolingual communication where the only voice heard is the curatorial and the rhetoric of power for which it stands, or speaks. The Task of the Curator Within the dynamic of the gallery, the responsibility of the exhibition ultimately falls to the curator. As Alexandra Sauvage contends, the role of curator is akin to that of a collector. Historically, galleries find their roots in cabinets of curiosities or wonder chambers from the Renaissance, where frequently ‘a meaning [of the collection] had nothing to do with the primary functions of the objects collected. Science, nature, aesthetics and mysticism were all intertwined in a logic dependent only on that of the collector’.[8] Later, taxonomic or classificatory ordering would take hold of gallery spaces, but their collection and organization still ultimately relied on the curator’s particular system of reason, or cultural, epistemic biases. As analyzed by philosopher Walter Benjamin, collecting is an inherently political action; curation is a practice of organizing the world into a coherent whole. Benjamin writes that the collector’s relation to objects is one: which does not emphasize their functional, utilitarian value—that is, their usefulness—but studies and loves them as the scene, the stage, of their fate. The most profound enchantment for the collector is the locking of individual items within a magic circle in which they are fixed as the final thrill, the thrill of acquisition, passes over them.[9] We can align the collecting process with rhetorical functions because the collection depends upon discursive practices; and so, we find it necessary to ideologically interrogate the curator within decolonization practices, as their positionality and role within the gallery are not only inherently political but also saturated with the politics of the one who inhabits this role. Indeed, this ‘magic circle’ within which acquisition affixes the object resonates with O’Doherty reduction theory of the gallery space, the boundaries of which the curator draws. André Lepecki identifies the role of the curator as ‘the management of the modes of visibility, valuation, and discursive life of objects’, controlling or mediating even those more meandering or diffused relations gallery attendees will have with the objects.[10] Yet, let us not forget to address the history of curation in our treatment of its contemporary expression. Since the 18th century, Western curating has been a function of the creation and management of colonial collections. The gallery space was a treasure house and the curator was the guardian of colonial plunder. Indeed, galleries are a medium of colonialism: The[ir] collections were built on conquest (the Napoleonic expeditions, the Benin Bronzes…) and on assumptions of ‘salvage’—the necessity and the right (guaranteed by a linear, progressive History) to collect vanishing or endangered artifacts, as well as written and oral records. Colonial collecting, which reached something like a fever pitch in the late 19th century, conceived of museums and archives as ultimate resting places, repositories for a precious legacy, kept in trust for science, for the nation, for Civilization, or for Humanity.[11] Curatorial practices uphold an evolutionary sequence of history which assumed a vantage point at the end, a prized location reserved for Western colonial powers, which enforced ‘a stable hierarchy of places and times’.[12] Broadly speaking, the gallery space historically operated as a tool of colonialism and imperialism. Modern curatorial practices are attempting a kind of critical intervention, to dislodge both itself and the gallery space from its modern origins and their legacies. The legacy of the gallery stands as ‘the collections of valuable things, and the job of the curator [is] to keep them safe—carefully displayed for public edification, or preserved in storage for research purposes’.[13] The curator stands as a possessor of an authoritative knowledge, which results in the arrangement of objects as vehicles for a unilateral transmission of a particular history. Contemporary curatorial work, in the times of decolonization and reconciliation, is attempting to engage with and articulate new histories and perspectives. Yet what would it mean to collaborate, or cohabit the gallery space, when the milieu and historical criterion of curation was for so long exclusionary and colonialism? The Task of Collaboration Recent trends in galleries and gallery studies, both anthropological and art historical, are rethinking the existing theories and methodologies associated with the treatment of Indigenous collections. These spaces are attempting to open themselves up to collaborative practices, with the aim of maintaining the gallery while imbuing it with the perspectives and needs of the Indigenous communities from which the exhibited objects originate. Ostensibly, this undertaking is a heteroglossic gallery practice—an attempt to present multiple embodied and cultural perspectives, instead of the typical, unilateral directive which O’Doherty describes. Collaborative exhibitions do not ask one actant within its network to absolutely vacate their positionality to make room for the other, even if this perspective is that of the settler who historically took precedence—this would only replicate, though role reverse, the problematic, ubiquitous dynamic of domination O’Doherty identifies. Rather, the two voices and perspectives attempt to speak to and with one another. To put it simply, collaborative exhibitions are a practice against assimilation and towards equitable cohabitation. Anthropologist Charlie Gere, reflecting on Clifford’s description of the museum as a contact zone, argues that the gallery ‘need not be thought of just as a storehouse of colonial plunder, nor a one-way medium, but as a place of interactive communication’.[14] Gere utilizes Clifford’s museal contact zone as a medium to rethink Western colonial curatorial norms, with the intention of challenging and reworking gallery relationships which he argues operate through one-sided imperialist appropriation. Here, we again understand the importance of the endeavour of collaborative exhibitions—their attempt to rethink and rework the encounter between Indigenous communities and settler curators within the gallery space. As Clifford writes: ‘[w]hen museums are seen as contact zones, their organizing structure as a collection becomes an ongoing historical, political, moral relationship—a power-charged set of exchanges, of push and pull’.[15] What the gallery space communicates, through its curatorial practices, possesses a dynamic relationship to the political sphere—both influencing and being influenced by larger cultural relationships and ideologies. The decolonization of the gallery space, as this vital zone of colonial contact, then engages more urgently with broader political moves of reconciliation. The Task of Decolonizing Translation Collaborative exhibitions rely on encounters between Indigenous knowledge keepers and settler curators, where both groups attempt both to speak and be heard to create the conceptual (as much as the physical) ground upon which the exhibition will stand. Collaborative work is ostensibly a process of translation, yet it is one which challenges conventional notions of translation as the rendering of a symbol expressed in one language or media into another—faithfully preserving or conveying the original, or pure, essence of the symbol. Rather, the sort of translation at stake in the gallery is a temporal and open-ended practice. This can be understood with reference to works of feminist scholar Donna Haraway as an alignment towards resonance, or a fluid creation of middle ground between two perspectives instead of a concrete exchange of static symbols and signers. Haraway writes that in decolonizing our language and encounters we have the task of ‘recoding communication and intelligence to subvert command and control’—of moving away from the tacit practices and dynamics of the gallery space that O’Doherty describes.[16] To construct the interactive gallery practice Gere calls for, we can utilize Haraway’s argument that we ‘dream not of a common language, but of a powerful infidel heteroglossia’—that we create such a space where the perspectives of both Indigenous knowledge keepers and settler curators can co-exist in dynamic relation with one another.[17] Yet, this endeavour is not so simple, and often within Indigenous-settler relations we find that settler perspectives often take precedence.[18] To illuminate this trouble, it is useful to turn to anthropologist Brian Noble. His work examines inter-cultural collaborative endeavours between settler and Indigenous communities, interrogating the inequity of these relations which often favour and replicate coloniality. These mechanisms of encounter ‘work by translating one socially embedded form of transaction into the terms or practices of another’.[19] In a 2015 work, Noble argues that there is an inherent coloniality to the middle ground of encounter, writing that settlers in inter-cultural collaborative efforts ‘move within a typically colonial middle ground between Indigenous politics and state policies’.[20] There is a dominance of settler definitions and perspectives within these dialogues, and so the resolve and practices the encounters produce tend to favour and replicate colonialism. However, that different worldviews tend to cancel each other out is a problem not of knowledge, but of certainty. Feminist scholar and political theorist Linda Zerilli argues that ‘certain epistemic commitments have come to define discussions’, which is to say that our ways of seeing overrides that which exists, or that which we attempt to undertake.[21] As an example, when I walk, the knowledge that I have two legs does not enter into the act of walking. In Zerilli’s account, we are often certain about things without taking them up as objects of knowledge, instead engaging with them more immediately, as a form not of thought, but of action. Zerilli contends that one does not experience one’s hinge propositions—those truths one takes for granted reflexivity, such as tacit gallery functions—as an object of cognition, but rather one acts them out: in daily habits and practices. It is on the level of the routine or the everyday that we uphold colonialism, and so too it must be at this level that we dismantle it. We must not, however, confuse this task as a prelapsarian undertaking, whereby we might return to the garden of ideas, encounters, and gallery spaces unmarred by colonialism and imperialism. Indeed, Haraway asserts that there is no site of unmediated knowledge, no location free from politics, and that the task of decolonization is ‘not about the false vision promising transcendence of all limits and responsibility’ but rather ‘turns out to be about particular and specific embodiment’[22] For Haraway, politics is an embodied instinct; and similarly, for Zerilli, politics takes place at the register of everyday action. Zerilli takes up Haraway’s ‘specific embodiment’ as the conscious practice of acknowledgement—the passionate commitment to admitting another’s worldview into your own without the assimilation or subsumption of either party. She writes that principally, on the level of interpersonal translation, this posture of acknowledgement is the recognition that ‘to make a claim is to speak for someone and to someone’—that we must recognize both ourselves and the other as constituents in the political encounter.[23] In the story told by my literature, the decolonization of the gallery space emerges as a complex and relational task, whereby settlers must challenge and overcome ingrained structures of colonialism to move towards more inclusive and just practices. Within collaborative exhibitions in particular, as an enduring relationship of mutual obligation, settler curators seek to facilitate the equitable cohabitation of the gallery space through dismantling the old hierarchies of reductive and exclusionary social criterion. However, in the attempt to bring decolonial theory into praxis in the gallery space, we often find an impasse of translation between settler curators and Indigenous knowledge keepers: the terms they use, even in the same language, have discontinuities in what they mean to each—and settler, colonial definitions often invade this gap. Taking acknowledgement to be the principal motion of both revealing and dismantling the harmful structures of gallery space, the focus of my research was to locate the barriers and aids to this endeavour within collaborative exhibitions. Methods and Methodology My research explored the experience and interpretations of settler curators working with Indigenous knowledge keepers within collaborative exhibitions. As my objective was to examine the condition of reconciliatory movements in the gallery space as they interact with and operate under the institutional expectations and functions of gallery space, my research gives attention to the shifting conceptions settler curators engaged in this work possess as they relate to their work, themselves, and the objects under their care. The qualitative method of semi-structure granted me access to the nuances of these decolonial efforts, with an emphasis on the lived and felt aspects of this work. Further, the semi-structured interview style allowed me to introduce several topics of consideration but still granted space for my interviewee to engage collaboratively in the direction of our interview—to reflect the participatory nature of my data, I henceforth refer to my interviewee as my interlocutor. Indeed, I must note that my interlocutor frequently anticipated my questions, charging into the ideological weight and history of their actions while describing their experiences as a curator working within a collaboration exhibition. The inclusion criteria for my research required my interlocutor to self-identify as a settler and to have worked or be working with Indigenous knowledge keepers in gallery spaces. I recruited via email. We conducted the interview via zoom which lasted approximately one hour, focusing on my interlocutor’s participation within collaborative exhibitions. With my interlocutor’s consent, our interview was audio-recorded and transcribed. His data was anonymized. All references to specific exhibitions were omitted to protect the privacy of my interlocutor and their collaborators. The COVID-19 pandemic, and its ensuing disruption of not only the gallery but the global community, necessitated that I supplement the scarcity of available curators with case studies and examinations of gallery didactic labels. My data therefore consists of one in-depth, semi-structured, qualitative interview with a Canadian settler curator whose work currently centers on collaborative exhibitions with Indigenous knowledge keepers. I utilized our interview to illuminate and further explore the findings of the following case studies: The Portland Museum & Tlingit Elders, The Glenbow Museum & Blackfoot Elders, and The Kwagiulth Museum. The scarcity of my data, as well as my qualitative approach, impairs my research’s claim to representability. Under ideal research conditions, a series of interactive interviews in person and in gallery spaces would provide an embodied consideration into the settler curators’ evolving relation to the gallery space. Further, with more time, a longitudinal study of gallery spaces throughout the process of a collaborative exhibition would shed further light on the nuances of this decolonization effort. However, the scope of an undergraduate thesis limits my ability to conduct extensive or long-term research. My research is a brief, reflective look into the particular experiences of settler curators as they attempt to decolonize the gallery space through their participation in collaborative exhibitions with Indigenous knowledge keepers. Analysis, or, What’s in a Name My research uncovered that the tacit postcolonial structure of the gallery space is frequently at odds with the task of decolonization. I found that the gallery maintains an economy of accessibility of the object, or display, where the very language proper the gallery space frequently precludes Indigenous agency and meaningful collaboration. My interlocutor often found the implications of certain terms to impede his decolonization efforts and so it became necessary for him to change the label he used to describe both himself and his work. The tacit process of curating an exhibition frequently undermined my interlocutor’s practice of acknowledgement—disrupting his posture of attentiveness to the implications of his presence, language, and routine practices. In our interview, I found a puzzling maze of discrepancies which divided the role of the curator from the task of collaboration. My interlocutor attempted to hold together these disparate modes of being in an unresolved inner dialogue. The endeavour of decolonization therefore inevitably tripped him up as he tried to unify these two realms.[24] Due to this harsh polarization, I found it best to take a dialectical approach to uncover the task of the curator in this era of reconciliation and to illuminate the corollaries between the ostensibly contrasted ways of being. The principal areas of concern of my research were the role of curator, their approach to the collection, and how they situate and showcase the collection to the public. I labeled these categories curator/keeper, artifact/object, and past/present to reflect my dialectical approach—whereby I juxtapose previous and novel conceptions to illuminate and isolate the trouble of these gallery practices. Curator / Keeper I use ‘keeper’ sometimes. To me, it makes a little more sense. It maybe has a different nuance than curator…’ At the start of our interview, I asked my interlocutor to describe his current role. In answering this first (and ostensibly basic) question, my interlocutor revealed the bifurcated nature of collaborative practices for settler curators. He described himself as both a curator and a keeper—the former when he spoke of his official title, and its designated responsibilities, and the later when discussing decolonizing work, principally through reference to collaborative exhibitions. This is the first discrepancy—the definition of custody—and so the question became what stood on either side of this divide? And further, why was it there to begin with? To curate is to collect, research, and study artifacts. My informant reflected a fidelity or obligation to the gallery space when he spoke of curating: all instances referred to a duty to preserve and uphold his institution’s discourse. He spoke of collecting artifacts under the purview of the gallery space’s facilities. This definition of curation reveals undertones of its heritage in the colonial history of the gallery space, where the curator was the guardian of imperial plunder and ideology.[25] As will become increasingly clearer, my interlocutor is keenly aware of the colonial traps precarious through curatorial practices. My interlocutor described traditional curating as ‘bringing together a bunch of materials in a new way to tell a story in three-dimensional space’. Here, we see the gallery position curator as the authority over the collection, bringing together disparate objects to tell or maintain a story of their own choosing. Curating leaves little room for meaningful or equal collaboration. Further, the collected objects appear to belong to the gallery, affixed by the curator absolutely into this ‘magic circle’ of the collection which divorces the objects from their living relations.[26] My interlocutor noted this problematic dynamic of curation when he later remarked that the etymological history of the term curator initially referred to ‘a keeper of souls’. This reflects O'Doherty's description of the gallery as a space of confrontation and not of collaboration. The primary characteristic of this role is the maintenance of ownership, putting forth an allegiance to the gallery space before the objects and cultures it houses. Within collaborative exhibitions, this dominant posture estranges the curator from the task of collaborating with Indigenous knowledge keepers. By contrast, to keep is to steward, care for, and share objects. My informant spoke of keeping when he described his role within collaborative exhibitions and his responsibility to both his collaborators and to the collection. For my interlocutor, this term denotes ‘caring for not just the objects, but the communities from which they come. You’re helping preserve things that are important to them that are in our storage [emphasis added]’. With this claim, my interlocutor highlights how the usage of the term keeper—and ultimately, the embodiment of this role—works to decenter the object’s placement in the gallery space and focalize its living history. This new function is not simply the keeping of souls, but the recognition of the complex political bodies from which they originate. Further, the recognition of the object’s living relations and social life reflects the temporality of keeping, against the curator’s more absolute ownership. In identifying with the role of keeper, my interlocutor sought to distance himself and delineate his practice from the colonial heritage of curation and work towards engaging the perspective and needs of his collaborators. The most urgent reason why my interlocutor used the label keeper was to equate his work to his collaborators. He discussed intentionally utilizing this term when working in collaboration with Indigenous knowledge keepers to forge a ‘connection between both of us using that term’—to show that ‘we are all keepers of tradition’. In identifying with the label of keeper, my interlocutor sought to equate his position, responsibilities, and authority with that of his Indigenous collaborators. The process of identifying with the label of keeper works towards the dissolution of semantic distinctions and barriers between settler curators and Indigenous knowledge keepers within the gallery space. Case Study: The Portland Museum & Tlingit Elders In 1989, the Portland Art Museum collected a diverse group to discuss its Rasmussen Collection of Northwest Coast Native American Art. Museum staff, art historians, and Tlingit Elders accompanied by translators to discuss the re-installment of the collection’s exhibition. The curators presented objects from the collection to the Elders for comment one at a time, with the expectation that they disclose the objects’ histories—how each object was made, by whom, and for what purpose. The museum staff assumed the Elders would provide the origins and context of the objects. This was not the case. Instead, the Tlingit Elders ‘referred to the regalia with appreciation and respect, but they seemed only to them as aides-memoires, occasions for the telling of stories and the singing of songs’.[27] The objects in the Rasmussen Collection, the focus of the consultation, were left at the margin: ‘[f]or long periods no one paid any attention to them’.[28] The session brought forth voices, songs, dances, living stories and experiences. Unfortunately, no staff members at the time understood how to reconcile the ceremony they had witnessed with the gallery’s practices, and the session was archived—suspending not only the insights but the desires the Tlingit Elders articulated. We can see the dynamics of curation play out in the structure of this meeting, and how ultimately this structure precludes Indigenous agency. At the basement meeting, curators presented objects from the collection to the Elders for comment one at a time. Immediately, we can understand that though this gathering was meant to be an act of collaboration, the curators maintained ownership over the objects—presenting them in their own order, not sharing or allowing the Tlingit Elders to come to their own objects on their own terms. The curators presented the objects with the expectation that they reveal their histories, with the intention of up-keeping and maintaining their ownership of the objects. While collaboration was intended, the curators stood between the objects, their living relations and originating community. In this way, curating speaks of artifacts, absolutely belonging to the museal space while keeping speaks of objects, with living relationships that extend beyond the gallery walls in which they are temporarily housed. Artifact / Object I’m struggling with those terms and that’s a good thing. It’s an active thing. I don’t have it figured out. Objects and artifacts. I think I use them for reasons similar to why I use curator and keeper… From an anthropological standpoint, an artifact is a human-made item which discloses vital information about the culture and society of the humans from whom it originated. Within the gallery space, however, ‘artifact’ denotes a process of discovery and examination which then arrives at the eventual presentation. The curator rearticulates the relations of the object, subsuming the particular to speak to the general public. My interlocutor was keenly aware of the implications of an object’s placement in the gallery space, and purposely spoke of his collection as such—as objects—over and against the language of artifacts. This is the second discrepancy: the tension of one’s approach to the collection. Throughout our interview, my interlocutor spoke of consciously utilizing the term ‘object’ to dislodge his approach from the gallery’s system of abstraction. For my interlocutor, the term artifact reflects a process of embalming. He described it as the petrification of the object into a ‘final, unconnected thing’ that is ‘divorced and stripped of all the context processes around it which gives it a false impression of what you’d call objectivity’. The term artifact speaks of objects displaced, removed from their original context to be supplanted and suspended in the gallery space. This motion simultaneously centralizes the gallery’s presentation of the object and mystifies its construction, which enables the misappropriation of objects into false and otherwise biased histories. The term ‘artifact’ is homogenous precisely in its opposition to the heterogeneity identified as locality—the richness of an object’s particularity. My interlocutor discussed the deterritorialization of the object: the manner in which its ideological and physical location in the gallery space effectively abstracts the object from its context, utility, and relationality. What my interlocutor called the ‘false objectivity’ of the gallery, and it is precisely the control and patronization of the object O’Doherty speaks of. My interlocutor also described this as the process of ‘artifact-ification’ where the gallery suspends the object without relative time, place, or space. Instead, O’Doherty’s white cube surrounds the object with typically stark white walls and concrete floors which present the idea of objectivity and universality through its lack of specificity—presenting a view from nowhere which emboldens the object to a silence par excellence. To resist this atrophy of the object or its ‘artifact-ification’, my interlocutor described consciously reconstituting his language, speaking of objects rather than artifacts. This term, for him, acknowledges the various perspectives each object contains and the multiple and on-going relationships in orbit around it. He simply stated that ‘there is something about [the term] ‘object’ which is a little more open’. It contrasts and brings to the fore the gallery’s language of artifact as speaking to a static notion of the past. My interlocutor utilizes the term object to acknowledge the legacy of colonial violence and domination in the gallery space, claiming succinctly that ‘it brings out some of our biases in the Western perspective that we turn objects into unconnected things’. In employing the term ‘object’, my interlocutor decentralizes the gallery’s ideological determination on the object, as an artifact of a fixed past, and turns towards the object itself, as a living being enmeshed in multiple living histories. The term object, however, is not without its own set of issues. My interlocutor describes continually re-evaluating his linguistic practices as he continues to work with and learn from his Indigenous partners. Indeed, the term object is often deeply problematic, as it isolates the object in its immediacy and divorces it from the rich particularity of its context. My interlocutor described an interaction he had with an Indigenous artist who resisted this term as ‘[their] work is a process and the actual thing [the artwork] is just part of that process’. The term object for this Indigenous artist put the focus on their piece as a final product and not as an ongoing set of relationships. My interlocutor reflected a need to be flexible with his grammar, and recognize that the language of the gallery must come from the communities from which the objects originate. His use of the term object is an active practice which reflects his effort to recognize that the gallery’s way of interacting with objects is often irreconcilable with the originating communities’ needs and desires. The power of the curator as an individual, however, has real-world limitations. This ‘artifact-ification’ which my interlocutor described comes from many essential and inconspicuous aspects of curation—of putting together a show. The act of working in the gallery under the purview of his curatorial responsibilities often disoriented my interlocutor's attentive posture of acknowledgement towards certainty—of curatorial doing without knowing or of acting without necessarily engaging the implications of his actions. Indeed, my interlocutor identified the bureaucracy, or tacit functions of his vocation, to debase the object and convert it into an artifact. Namely, he identified the process of acquisition and the creation of exhibitions as a task which muddles his attempts at mental decolonization. The Trouble of Acquisition We have to use FedEx. We have to ship it here. We have to go to the conservation; and I wonder will that practice alone reinforce things that might not really fit with the community we're working with? The ways in which galleries ‘acquire’ their collections, or have objects brought to the gallery is an act often alienated from reconciliatory efforts. My interlocutor described how these frequently unceremonious acts, which appear to be of little consequence, are in fact ideologically loaded and posture the curator towards the gallery and away from the object and its community. He cited specifically how many objects enter the gallery through FedEx and other commercial couriers, which complicates his decolonization efforts as the object’s living relations and dynamic value are reduced when he fills out insurance papers. He stated that the process of FedExing an object ‘reinforces things that go against what we want to do, a lot of invisible processes that we do that maybe shape our conceptions and actually might create problems’. Quantifying cultural history is a reductive and colonial act. My interlocutor described it as an ‘invisible practice’ or part of curation which reinforces the gallery’s grammar of encounter, reconditioning him to move towards the object as an artifact. The task of acquisition flustered my interlocutor’s posture of acknowledgement, as he was torn between his curatorial duties to acquire new objects for collection and his reconciliatory responsibility to respect and acknowledge the object’s living histories. To put it simply, what can it mean to receive a sacred object in much the same way one acquires a box of pens? The Trouble of the Exhibition Sometimes we just need an object. On some level we know that this object is part of a community and of a knowledge system that isn’t necessarily material, but at the same time, when you're working within a set of expectations of a show… The structure of exhibitions, as hubs of materialism, by virtue of their aesthetic structure frequently subsume the object into an ethos of indiscriminate utility. My interlocutor discussed how the very process of putting together an exhibition often distorted his relationship to the object. He instanced specifically how the aesthetic needs of a show—organizing a pleasing and dynamic space—would occasionally take precedence over the meaning of the object. My interlocutor ascribed this problem to the innate materialism of the gallery space, which frequently dominates the immaterial aspects of objects in service of the celebration of the visual. He contended that the current practice of exhibiting the object is frequently an issue, as it cloaks the interconnected and often intangible relations of the object with its ability to fill empty space. My interlocutor described this as ‘operationalizing’ the object, a process which produces immense mental strain in the bifurcation of the presence of the settler curator in the gallery—at once responsible to manufacture an exhibition and also to consider the delicate meaning and relations of the object. The problem, for him, is how this locality conditions him away from the object as ‘just material relationships and processes’ instead of as ‘part of an interconnected web of knowledge’ which frequently occurs during the exhibition process. Contemporary collaborative exhibition operations sever the task of collaboration from the work of curation. Indeed, equal treatment does not decolonize the gallery space per se—my interlocutor stressed that there must be equity, or respect for the particular meanings and relations the object possesses. To put it simply, what is left of the meaningfulness of particular objects if we can replace them on the gallery wall? Case Study: The Glenbow Museum & Blackfoot Elders[29] In the 1990s, The Glenbow Museum and Blackfoot Elders came together to create the collaborative exhibition Nitsitapiisinni: Our Way of Life. The Blackfoot Elders agreed to share their cultural knowledge and objects under the caveat that the museum staff participate in Blackfoot ceremonies. They ‘reasoned that if the Blackfoot invited museum staff to ceremonies, staff members would witness firsthand the important role of bundles [of objects] in the community, and would appreciate the need for the bundles to be returned’.[30] The Glenbow settler curators spent significant time in Blackfoot communities at local events and ceremonies to ensure that every ‘element—design, conservation, scripting of text—embodied Blackfoot perspectives and respected cultural protocol’.[31] The settler curators participated in Blackfoot ceremonies to transfer the bundles in gift exchanges between the two parties. The Glenbow Museum repatriated the Blackfoot objects it had housed, but to my knowledge the Blackfoot community continues to loan their objects for display through ceremonial exchange. This process of ceremony challenges the ‘artifact-ification’ which often plagues acquisition through sustaining the living relations of the object. The bundles persist as occasions of social exchange and not as static units of history. The middle ground of this exhibition is the radical decision on the part of the Blackfoot community to include settler curators in their ceremony. This important caveat to the ordinary economy of acquisition forces settler curators to acknowledge and reckon with the object’s living relationships. The Blackfoot extension of community reterritorialises the object—proclaiming the object as a deeply rooted and connected thing. Such a cultural and political achievement decentralizes the object’s placement in the gallery and highlights the transient nature of stewardship. This act of acknowledgement recreates and continues the object’s connection to its community and its embodied position in the present. Past / Present It's not just a repackaging of old things. It's actually the relationships, the discussions, the exchanges, the tensions, the confrontation with different worldviews that's knowledge generating. So I think in the process itself we're all learning new things… The disorienting pull of both the gallery curating and collaborative keeping of artifacts and objects unfolds in how a settler curator displays the collection. In the dizzying grammatical cleave of collaborative curation, what becomes of the language of the exhibition? My interlocutor outlined two principal and conflicting articulations of the collection: text-based and collections-based exhibitions. The former comes from established literature and historical narratives, operationalizing objects to present or enforce pre-existing ideas about a particular culture or period of time—the tacit curatorial way of organizing an exhibition. The latter comes from the collection itself, engaging and centering the living histories inherent to the object—which is the call of collaborative exhibitions. My interlocutor described the tension within exhibition assembly as acknowledging the object’s placement in historical narratives without erasing its presence in the present. This is the final discrepancy—the question of how to speak of objects, or where to locate them in time. The curator stands enmeshed in multiple, overlapping and often contradictory histories and is tasked with translating the rich life of the object to the audience. Throughout our interview, my interlocutor reflected a tension of attempting to situate objects in the present, which is to speak of them actively as a means of opening them to both the audience and his collaborators, against the gallery textual milieu. Text-based exhibitions stand in the past—the objects firmly sealed in an untouchable history. My interlocutor described this process of exhibition generation as ‘going through old catalogues and books and then turning it in into a three-dimensional [show]’. The meaning and social life of the object are then external—coming from discourses of which the object is not an active constituent. This lack of agency extends also to both the Indigenous knowledge keepers as well as the settler curators as the gallery space treats history as sacred, sealed and untouchable—the relics of which the gallery displays.[32] My interlocutor succulently critiqued this type of exhibition as ‘just a repacking of old things’—where both the objects, the curators, and collaborators are able to truly touch or impact the homogenous narrative the gallery space perpetuates. Collections-based exhibitions stand in the present—the objects themselves and their active relationships generate the content of the exhibit. The internal life of the object as it relates to its creator, the curator and collaborators, and the viewer is the principal focus of these shows. The principal actants within the gallery space—namely the curator (and their associates), the viewer, and the object—are all acknowledged within this exhibition process. Here, the gallery assumes nothing of their particular way of seeing, neither does the thesis of the exhibition subsume the idiosyncrasies of their experience, but rather illuminates and celebrates the dynamic perspectives of all involved actors. My interlocutor described collections-based exhibitions as a process rather than as a product—the work is what he described as ‘knowledge-generating’ through centering the present and active encounter with the object. The introduction of collections based exhibitions calls forth the problematics of text-based exhibitions. The ability of the object to sit and speak in the present goes against the tacit functions of the gallery space which prefers to seal the object in the past. My interlocutor identified this as a major concern of contemporary curating, and the struggle he faced most often. This is a major concern of contemporary curating, and much of this battle exists in the didactic labels of the exhibition. The Task of Labels [Instead of] going through an exhibit as data, this false objectivity of third-person and false neutrality of a museum voice, I think I would enjoy it if someone was just speaking to me… My interlocutor identified a major breakthrough in his current exhibition when one Indigenous collaborator suggested that they write the didactic labels in first person perspective—written as if someone was speaking directly to the viewer. Didactic labels in the gallery typically disclose the history of an object—how it was made, by whom, with what materials, and for what purpose (Figure 1). Curators place them alongside objects to help guide viewers through an exhibition—labels function to frame the object, focusing attention on certain aspects and histories. Historically, didactic labels deal in the materialism of the object, which aligns it with certain colonial rhetorics in the gallery space. The new first-person labels my interlocutor described sought to counteract this by utilizing active language which is descriptive to the emotional or intangible relations of the object. To illuminate this, I constructed two templates for these types of didactic labels to showcase their structure and priorities. Figure 1 presents a static object. The abstract, or externally focused third-person or omniscient label speaks of a textual history rooted in materialism. Its structure is prosaic, a list of facts occasionally aided by a brief anecdote which supports this reductive reading. This method notes the artist or maker as well as the medium as matters of fact, not storied processes of labour and care. This didactic label positions itself as objective through its abstract description—it presents what my interlocutor describes as a ‘final, unconnected thing’, or an artifact. Figure 2 welcomes readers to engage a living object. The prioritization of narrative centres the object's relationships. This welcomes readers to the social life of this object, as the evocative language and accounts bring the object to life. Further, the first person perspective highlights that the label is but one story told about the object, creating space for other accounts. First-person labels seek to speak-with and not speak-of an object’s history. My interlocutor described them as ‘authentic’ and ‘genuine’ opposed to the ‘false neutrality of a museum voice’. The decision of what to write and how to write it informs what a viewer takes away from an exhibition and what meaning they glean from an object. For my interlocutor, the new practice of first-person labels works towards breaking down the gallery’s authorial domination, as it firmly situates the object in the present. Viewers moving the gallery no longer interact with objects as data upholding the thesis of the gallery, but rather as sites of meaningful encounter. This fundamentally stripped down the distinctions and authorial dominance. Case Study: The Kwagiulth Museum The Kwagiulth Museum and Cultural Centre at Cape Mudge (Wei Wai Kai Nation) opened in 1979. The collection—the Kwagiulth’s objects—were not merely to be indiscriminately seen or leered at in showcases, but to be respected and understood as ‘embod[ying] the ineffable [and] re-actualizing the ancestors’.[33] For the Kwagiulth community individual objects embodied specific names and stories, crests and privileges, which could only be transmitted and inherited through Potlatch, particularly through those ceremonies marking the institution of marriage. Kwagiulth Elders warned against dividing the collection into exhibitions, as they left it would ‘stir up the part and lead to as much resentment as the confiscation itself had done’.[34] The division was however unavoidable within the constraints of the gallery space, and it therefore became imperative to articulate the object’s social life—’account for what the objects were, to whom they belong and who their putative ‘heirs’ were to be’.[35] Ultimately, the gallery displayed the objects in strategies found in typical gallery exhibitions—enclosed in glass cases and mounted on walls. The Kwagiulth exhibition however, attempted to subordinate its own aesthetic as a repository of family owned properties through label text written in the present tense and bearing the names of each item’s current owners. The visceral and direct tense of the Kwagiulth Museum triggers overlapping and often disputed histories of its objects. The personal perspective shifts our thoughts to the impact of this inequality on the lives of ordinary people. In calling attention to the present, living, and continuing relations the objects have outside of the gallery, this exhibition zeroes in on problematic assumptions typical exhibition language perpetuate. The power of situating the gallery in the present is that the object then displays an inventive process of fluid knowledge. Although, crucially, the Kwagiulth Elders were uncomfortable with the processes of exhibition as the false capitulation of objects, the use of first person language and situating the collection in the present seeks to retrieve the social life of the object. The introduction of collections based exhibitions calls forth the problematics of text-based exhibitions. The ability of the object to sit and speak in the present goes against the tacit functions of the gallery space. It is the curator’s role is to arrange an authoritative message for the public through exhibiting objects in a manner calculated to render that message visible. The usage of first person perspective illuminates this process of construction, and reconstitutes the gallery space as one storyteller of many. Conclusion, or, Is it Possible to Negotiate the Constitutive Limits of the Gallery Space? At the start of our interview, my informant discussed the notion of ‘airwaves’, or the space one takes up in talking, especially in popular media and discourse. He described being attentive to the priority his voice, as a settler, often receives in discussions of collaborative exhibitions and decolonizing gallery spaces practices. It occurs to me that one may perceive my research as an attempt to discover if there was a way for settler curators, or for the gallery itself to be constructed in such a way that they could be impervious to perpetuating colonial violence. Indeed, much literature on decolonizing the gallery space participates in a discourse of ‘redemption’—attempting to salvage from the histories of violence relations of democratic, non-hierarchical exchange that are to govern contemporary gallery spaces as free and equal contact zones.[36] The essential take away I found from my research is that this kind of redemption is not possible—and that thinking this way, thinking there is or could be an absolute and monolithic solution, is part of the problem. We cannot construct the proper or perfect posture for this makes us artifacts of our present which will soon be the past as we continue to learn and live with others. Keeping objects in the present currently works for my interlocutor as a practice of acknowledgement which illuminates the colonial vestiges of curating artifacts in the past, but even now these ways of being do not always meet the challenges of decolonizing the gallery space and succeed. Keeping antagonizes the implications of absolute and dominant ownership nascent in curating, yet still finds itself tripped up when it performs bureaucratic tasks. To use the language of objects illuminates the embalmed nature of artifacts, but this language still falters when assembling exhibitions. The position of the present in the gallery space seeks to salvage the internal life of the object, yet its mere presence in the gallery is an abstraction. Reconciliation in the gallery is an active process, something that we must continually work at together for there can be no personal reckoning. To shore up the violence of the inherited body or institution—of which the gallery space is but one of many—we must be in dialogue with others, specifically those communities against which these institutions continue to perpetrate harm. To reconcile, from the Latin ‘re-’ meaning back and ‘conciliare’ to bring together, expresses an ardent force towards another. This is not to dismiss the vital work and reflection that settlers, and others in privileged communities must undertake, but to recognize that the true meaning and value of our actions are found in community, in being-with and being-towards others. If we posit that the purpose and function of the gallery space is to disseminate knowledge, entertain, and preserve objects related to the human story, then the essential question we must ask of ourselves is: who is this for? As we locate vestiges of colonialism intrinsic in the ways our galleries function, we must critically engage how current practices are in fact antithetical to their intended practice, namely of education and empowerment, and investigate the ways in which they uphold, often invisibly, structures and ideologies which continue to alienate and harm racialized and marginalized communities. Caroline DeFrias Caroline DeFrias (CDF) is an artist-academic, currently operating in Mi’kma’ki territory in Kjipuktuk (so called Halifax, Canada). Their work, through a variety of mediums and disciplines, seeks to explore the construction of gallery space and the encounter of the art object, notions of inheritance and identity in relation to immigration and (re)settlement, as well as the ethics and pathos of the archive. They hold a Combined Honours with distinction Bachelor of Arts from the University of King’s College in Social Anthropology and the Historiography of Science, with a certificate in Art History and Visual Culture, and are pursuing a Masters of Fine Art in Art History from Concordia University. [1] United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2008). [2] André Lepecki, ‘Decolonizing the Curatorial’ (2017) 47(1) Theater 102. [3] J Parker, ‘Beyond Learning: Exploring Visitors’ Perceptions of the Value and Benefits of Museum Experiences’ (2008) 51(1) Curator: The Museum Journal. [4] Ray Rosenzweig and David Thelen, The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life (Columbia University Press 2000). [5] ‘We call upon the federal government to provide funding to the Canadian Museums Association to undertake, in collaboration with Aboriginal peoples, a national review of museum policies and best practices to determine the level of compliance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and to make recommendations’. TRC Call 67 accessed 6 June 2022. [6] James Clifford, Routes: Travel And Transformation In The Late Twentieth Century (Harvard University Press 1997) 188-219. [7] Brian O’Doherty, Inside the White Cube: the Ideology of the Gallery Space (University of California Press 1976) 10. [8] Alexandra Sauvage, ‘To Be or Not to Be Colonial: Museums Facing Their Exhibitions’ (2010) 6(12) Culturales 104. [9] Walter Benjamin, ‘Unpacking my Library: A Talk about Book Collecting’ in Hannah Arendt (ed), Illuminations (HarperCollins 2019) 61. [10] Lepecki (n 2) 102. [11] Clifford, ‘The Times of the Curator’ (2011) 7(4) Collections 400. [12] ibid. [13] ibid 402. [14] Charlie Gere, ‘Museums, Contact Zones and the Internet’ in David Bearman and Jennifer Trant (eds) Museum Interactive Multimedia 1997: Cultural Heritage Systems Design and Interfaces: selected papers from ICHIM 97, the Fourth International Conference on Hypermedia and Interactivity in Museums, Paris, France (Archives & Museum Informatics 1997) 59. [15] Clifford (n 6) 192. [16] Donna Haraway, ‘A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century’ in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (Routledge 1991) 22. [17] ibid 28. [18] We need look no further than the current lobster lawsuit between the Mi’kmaq and non-Indigenous fishers with centers on the questions of the definition of ‘moderate livelihood’. The Peace and Friendship treaties states that Mi’kmaq have the right to hunt, fish and gather for the purposes of earning a moderate livelihood—a term left ambiguous and without definition from the Canadian state to this day. In ensuing configurations, the settler state dominates the meaning of this term and so regulates Indigenous fishing. Cf. Katie Dangerfield, ‘Why the term ‘moderate livelihood’ is at the centre of N.S’.s fishery dispute’ (Global News, 23 October 2020) accessed 6 June 2022. [19] Brian Noble, ‘Niitooii—‘The Same That Is Real’: Parallel Practice, Museums, and the Repatriation of Piikani Customary Authority’ (2007) 44(1) Anthropologica 338. [20] Noble, ‘Tripped up by Coloniality: Anthropologists as Instruments or Agents in Indigenous—Settler Political Relations? (2015) 57(2) Anthropologica 428. [21] Linda Zerilli, ‘Doing without Knowing: Feminism’s Politics of the Ordinary’ in Cressida Heyes (ed) The Grammar of Politics (Cornell University Press 2003) 131. [22] Haraway, ‘Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective’ (1998) 14(3) Feminist Studies583. [23] Zerilli (n 21) 148. [24] Noble (n 20). [25] Clifford (n 11). [26] Benjamin (n 9). [27] Clifford (n 6) 189. [28] ibid. [29] The term ‘Blackfoot'' was not an Indigenous term used by this group to identify themselves. They recognized themselves by their tribal names: the Peigan, which includes the Amsskaapipikani or Blackfeet in Montana and the Apatohsipikani or Pikani in Alberta; the Kainai, or Blood, in Alberta; and Siksika, also in Alberta. Each group is distinct, with its own customs and political leaders. They share cultural practices such as the ookaan and speak dialects of the same language. More recently, they have joined as a political body, adopting the Western term ‘The Blackfoot Confederacy’. Cf. Cara Krmpotich and David Anderson, ‘Collaborative Exhibitions and Visitor Reactions: The Case of Nitsitapiisinni: Our Way of Life’ (2005) 48(4) Curator: The Museum Journal. [30] Krmpotich and Anderson (n 29) 380. [31] ibid 381. [32] O’Doherty (n 7). [33] Barbara Saunders, ‘Kwakwaka'Wakw Museology’ (1995) 7(1) Cultural Dynamics 44. [34] ibid. [35] ibid 45. [36] Ben Dibley, ‘The museum’s redemption: Contact zones, government and the limits of reform’ (2005) 8(1) International Journal of Cultural Studies.

On 12 January 2022, there was an attempt to destroy, or at least damage, the statue of Prospero and Ariel installed outside the BBC’s Broadcasting House in London, on the grounds that its sculptor, Eric Gill, was a ‘paedophile’. A petition has been launched on the website of the left-wing petition organiser, 38 degrees, calling for the removal of the statue. At the time of writing (February 2022), it has nearly reached its target of 3,000 signatures. Save the Children has withdrawn its recommendation that one of the many type-fonts developed by Gill—Gill Sans—should be used in its publicity material. In the course of the media response to the attack, Gill was described as a ‘known paedophile’ who ‘sexually abused his two eldest daughters’[1] and ‘a monster, a depraved paedophile who abused his daughters and others…a man who committed horrific sexual crimes’.[2] The Wikipedia entry on Gill has a section on his ‘sexual crimes’. The 38 Degrees petition reads: Please sign to demand that the BBC remove the sculpture depicting a naked child, created by known paedophile Eric Gill, which is above the main entrance of BBC Broadcasting House. Gill had an incestuous relationship with his sister, sexual relationships with two of his pubescent daughters and even his family dog. The BBC likes to think a naked boy submissively leaning into the raised leg of a wizard is simply a metaphor for broadcasting. To the BBC Eric Gill was a major British artist rather than a child and animal abuser. Why is this important? I believe that the BBC would regain some credibility with their reputation, if they were seen to act upon the image of a naked child created by a known pedophile. It will show that they do not approve of the crimes committed by their past stars, Savile, King, Hall and Harris and show that they don’t condone anybody who carries out child abuse.[3] Comments left by signatories include: ‘To have a sculpture made by a pedo outside a building that harbers [sic] pedos is a disgrace to decent normal people. pull down the statue and also the building the BBC is a disgrace to the British people’; ‘The BBC are a disgrace from savil to hall and all the other monsters they helped. the pedos statue want smashed into a million bits and the building burnt to the ground’; ‘Because it’s absolutely grim mate, how is there a child penis on a sculpture of all things?? We don’t even celebrate some of our greatest heroes yet we apparently support wizards and pedos, no thanks I’ll stick to dungeons and dragons’.[4] The controversy, such as it is, turns on whether it is right to admire work done by a depraved monster (‘Eric Gill’s crimes were unforgivable, but his statue is blameless’[5]; ‘Eric Gill: can we separate the artist from the abuser?’[6]) and, if it is, whether such work should not be shown in a more discreet setting, perhaps adorned with some sort of explanatory text. There seems to be little disagreement over whether or not Gill can be characterised as a ‘paedophile’—‘a man who committed horrific sexual crimes’.[7] I developed an interest in Gill through my interest in the French Cubist painter, Albert Gleizes. Both Gill and Gleizes were in correspondence with the Ceylonese metaphysician and writer on traditional art, Ananda Coomaraswamy. Both were fond of quoting Coomaraswamy’s well-known dictum: ‘An artist is not a special sort of man but every man is a special sort of artist’. Neither Gill nor Gleizes knew each other but Coomaraswamy grouped them together with himself and the American engraver (friend and correspondent of Gill) Arthur Graham Carey as people assumed to be ‘mediaevalists’, though of course that wasn’t how he saw it himself. He preferred the term ‘traditionalist’.[8] I set about reading Gill and was impressed by his general philosophy on the nature of work and art, which could perhaps be summarised in the opening two paragraphs of his essay from 1918, Slavery and Freedom: That state is a state of Slavery in which a man does what he likes to do in his spare time and in his working time that which is required of him. This state can only exist when what a man likes to do is to please himself. That state is a state of Freedom in which a man does what he likes to do in his working time and in his spare time that which is required of him. This state can only exist when what a man likes to do is to please God.[9] D.H. Lawrence, who disliked Gills prose in general (‘Crass is the only word: maddening like a tiresome uneducated workman arguing in a pub—argufying would describe it better—and banging his fist’), nonetheless, and despite the mention of ‘God’, found ‘more in those two paragraphs than in all Karl Marx or Professor Whitehead or a dozen other philosophers rolled together’.[10] Gill’s life and work was a long protest against everything that ‘art’ has become in our own time. He recognised and vigorously asserted the principle put forward by William Morris that ‘art’ is just another word for work well done; he successfully established the kind of rural community life which provides the best conditions for such work; he recognised that the function of his own art form—sculpture—was inseparable from religion and that indeed all art, which is to say all work, can only realise its highest value if it is done in a spirit of worship; he detested the business spirit and mechanised production, always asserting the importance of the human over the economic. All that brought him very close to the thinking of Albert Gleizes, who also distrusted ‘art’, emphasised the importance of craftsmanship, tried (with much less success than Gill) to establish a communal way of working and living, and believed that painting and sculpture had lost their way with the Renaissance and its imitation of the external appearances of nature. Both Gleizes and Gill liked to quote the dictum of Thomas Aquinas (also favoured by Coomaraswamy): ‘Art imitates nature not in its effects but in its way of working’. It seemed to me, reading Gill, that, like Gleizes, he was one of the necessary voices of the twentieth century. The Autobiography, in particular, struck me as one of the most delightful books I had ever read. I was therefore upset when, just at the moment that I was discovering him, his reputation as a moral thinker was trashed with the publication of Fiona MacCarthy’s biography.[11] The book was published in 1989 with a great deal of publicity, including a special TV programme on Gill and an article in The Independent colour supplement, all pursuing the theme that startling revelations were to be found in it concerning sexually aberrant behaviour with his daughters, at least one sister, maybe two, and even the family dog. It is a theme hammered home by the Introduction. Gill is presented as a ‘tragic’ figure riven by contradictions between his fine religious and social ideal and his disorderly life and passions: He was taken very seriously in his day. At his death, the obituaries suggested he was one of the most important figures of his period, not just as an artist and craftsman but as a social reformer, a man who had pushed out the boundaries of possibility of how we live and work; a man who set examples. But how convincing was he? One of his great slogans (for Gill was a prize sloganist) was ‘It All Goes Together’. As I traced his long and extraordinary journeys around Britain in search of integration, the twentieth-century artistic pilgrim’s progress, I started to discover aspects of Gill’s life which do not go together in the least, a number of very basic contradictions between precept and practice, ambition and reality, which few people have questioned. There is an official and an unofficial Gill and the official, although much the least interesting, has been the version most generally accepted.[12] She refers to ‘the smokescreen Gill himself and others so determinedly erected’ and affirms boldly: ‘At least I can be confident that Gill was not what he said he was. The Autobiography is full of obfuscation’.[13] And yet this is not at all the impression that is conveyed once we get into the substance of the book. Indeed, even the Introduction itself makes it plain that, whatever the details of his sexual activity, no-one who came into contact with him could be in any doubt that he regarded sex as a matter of immense importance, of endless wonder and delight and that he was, or seemed to be, completely lacking in any inhibitions on the subject, that he expected the same of all the others around him. I don’t myself share that attitude and, for the sake of the ideas that he had in common with Gleizes, I regret that he had it. But I can’t accuse him of ‘obfuscation’ on the matter. Having made this accusation, the Introduction continues: In earlier years Eric Gill had alighted on and promulgated in his own version Ananda Coomaraswamy’s Hindu doctrines of the erotic elements in art. Later on, at Ditchling, with the same conviction, he began propounding a complicated theory, or succession of theories, in which sexual activity is aligned to godliness, in which the sexual organs, far from their conventional depiction as the source of scandal, are ‘redeemed’ by Christ and ‘made dear’. It is a very radical and interesting theory, where Gill challenges Christendom’s traditional confrontation of matter and spirit, and indeed his theory is justified in part, at least for connoisseurs of art, by the wonderful erotic engravings of that period. But one senses something frantic in the zeal with which Gill exfoliated his passion, in contexts likely and unlikely, and in his evident enjoyment of the waves of consternation which followed, particularly from the monasteries.[14] When she comes to discussing the Autobiography she herself quotes, with evident relish, the wonderful passage in which Gill recounts his first discovery of the joys of masturbation:[15] But how shall I ever forget the strange, inexplicable rapture of my first experience? What marvellous thing was this that suddenly transformed a mere water-tap into a pillar of fire, and water into an elixir of life? I lived henceforth in a strange world of contradiction: something was called filthy which was obviously clean; something was called ridiculous which was obviously solemn and momentous; something was called ugly which was obviously lovely. Strange days and nights of mystery and fear mixed with excitement and wonder—strange days and nights, strange months and years.[16] Not much sign of ‘obfuscation’ there! Nor in the passage which she quotes with equal enthusiasm in which Gill describes the beauty of the flowers of the field as a magnificent display of sexual parts designed to entice for the purpose of procreation.[17] And accordingly invites us to see our own genitalia, male and female, as our most precious ‘ornaments’.[18] She makes the remarkable, almost perverse, observation that: ‘Gill the patriarchal figure surrounded by what at times seems dozens of his children and his grandchildren, is also a scene of pathos, fertility run wild, the all-too-logical conclusion of his “let ‘em all come” theories’.[19] She is referring to a passage, again in the Autobiography, when at the time of their marriage Gill and his wife, Mary (or Ethel as she was before her conversion to Catholicism) agreed not to bother with contraception: ‘“Always ready and willing” was our motto in respect to lovemaking and “let ‘em all come” was our motto in respect of babies’.[20] But they only had three daughters as well as one adopted son. Gill came from a family of thirteen children and he and Mary may well have wanted more but after a series of miscarriages they knew it was not to be. The ‘fertility run wild’ was the fertility of their daughters. Is Gill to be blamed—assuming it is a bad thing—for that? She says that she has ‘come to see Gill as a rather tragic figure’, because of the contradiction between his role as a model English Catholic ‘paterfamilias’ and his unruly sexual appetite.[21] What is astonishing about Gill, however, and this book confirms it, is the apparent absence of any such contradiction. Gill had sexual relations with his housekeepers, with female colleagues, the wives of his friends, his sisters (or at least one sister), and even his daughters. Yet the book gives little evidence of the ill-feeling, tension, and jealousy which such behaviour should normally have provoked. It is as if the normal rules don’t apply, and at one point, MacCarthy (following one of Gill’s Dominican friends) asks: ‘Was Gill honestly entitled to the privilege of innocence? Had he really been unaffected by the Fall?’[22] The question is an interesting one, given that Gill believed in the Fall and Fiona MacCarthy, one assumes, does not. In fact, the whole prurient glee with which the media establishment has swooped on Gill’s sexual misdeeds is interesting. In theory, sexual innocence should be an easy matter for those who do not believe that the sinfulness of sexual passion has been revealed by God. Yet here is a man who is apparently incapable of feeling sexual guilt and whose sexual activities seem to have caused no lasting damage to anyone, and Fiona MacCarthy tries to persuade herself that he was unhappy, tragic, eaten up by contradictions, even though all the evidence she gives proclaims the contrary. While MacCarthy thinks that there should have been a tension between Gill’s sexual activity and his Catholicism, Gill maintains that the two were mutually complementary. She tells us about a visit Gill paid with his then protégé, the Welsh writer and artist, David Jones, to a certain ‘big fat man with a taste for true pornography…The walls of his flat in Lincoln’s Inn Fields were almost papered over with pornographic postcards. At the sight of these, Gill turned to David Jones, saying: “If I were not a Catholic, I should have been like this”’.[23] Again, Gill complained about his brother whose marriage was breaking up that ‘Brother Max is so virtuous by nature and so stupid and muddle-headed…that he prefers to cast M. adrift and break up the home (thus depriving his children of all that home implies) rather than have a love affair to go to confession about’.[24] The same attitude to acknowledging sin is found in the Autobiography, in which he proclaims it as a privilege, an assertion of one’s pride in being a man and thus capable of sinning.[25] One has the feeling that having a good sin to confess was all part of the fun (one of his confessors, incidentally, was Fr John O’Connor, thought to have been the model for Chesterton’s Father Brown. That must have made things easier). He develops an argument that Catholics, confident in their membership of the True Church, can afford to take a lighter attitude to life than Protestants and agnostics, who continually have to prove themselves.[26] And, especially towards the end of his life, MacCarthy tells us, new visitors to Pigott’s, the last of the rural artistic communities he founded, had to pass through a sort of initiation test in which Gill held forth to them about Christ’s genitals which, given that He was the Perfect Man, could be assumed to have been of a goodly size. While he was receiving instruction to enter the Church in 1913, he was working on a life size marble replica of his own phallus. One feels a certain sympathy for MacCarthy. He ought to have been a neurotic and unhappy soul. It somehow seems unjust that he wasn’t. MacCarthy argues in support of her view that he was a tragic figure, that ‘a chain of destructiveness began at Ditchling, not long after his conversion to Catholicism. Perhaps a part of his tragedy is that he was both ahead of his times and behind them. His urge to experiment with social conventions, especially the prevailing sexual mores, became more obviously and more painfully at variance with the Gills’ accepted role as the ideal Catholic family, the public demonstration of fidelity and cohesiveness’.[27] In fact, Gill’s life at Ditchling Common, at Capel-y-ffin, and at Pigott’s (the three rural craft communities he founded or co-founded after his conversion to Catholicism) was astonishingly creative, not just for his own work but for his ability to attract and train loyal followers and apprentices, bringing out their own creative capacities. Of course there were immense problems, and it is quite believable that he was crushed by his workload, his financial responsibilities, and his despair at the direction in which political events were moving in the 1930s. But anyone who knows anything about the difficulties of maintaining his kind of life, and of holding such communities together, will be impressed by his achievement, especially remembering that, unlike Ruskin, Morris, Carpenter, or Ashbee, he had no inherited wealth. All his ventures were financed only by his own work. The main evidence for Gill’s ‘destructiveness’ is his quarrel with his former close friend, the printer, Hilary Pepler. But though MacCarthy discusses this at some length and tells us that there is a long correspondence on the subject, she doesn’t in my view quite come to grips with it. Was it, as she hints in the Introduction, prompted by jealousy because his eldest daughter Elizabeth had fallen in love with Hilary’s son, David (whom she eventually married, against her father’s opposition)? Or did his opposition to this affair spring from an already established rift with Pepler, which he attributed to questions of finance and also (a major part of the account in the Autobiography) to his complaint that Ditchling was more and more taking on the character of a Catholic tourist resort. This would seem to be confirmed by his withdrawal to the—at the time—nearly inaccessible Capel y Finn. MacCarthy’s account of the joyous arrival at Capel and the subsequent life there (and a couple of years later when the whole menagerie moved again to Pigotts, near High Wycombe in the Chilterns) hardly fits the idea that it was a ‘chain of destructiveness’. Gill, MacCarthy says, was both ahead of his times and behind them. Presumably it is as a sexual libertarian that he was ahead of the times, and as a Catholic family man, who loved being surrounded by children and grandchildren, that he was behind. But Gill’s sexual libertarianism is utterly different from the unhappy obsessions of modern society. He lived in a different world from that of William Burroughs, Hubert Selby Jr, Peter Greenaway, or Tom Sharpe. What is so striking about post-war sexual permissiveness, chronically so in the case of pop music (David Bowie, Lou Reed, Ultravox, The Smiths, Prince), is the carefully cultivated atmosphere of misery and degradation that surrounds it. There is a feeling of the obsessive scratching of an itch, knowing that it will only make the wound deeper. Compare them with Gill, in a passage from the diaries which I have taken at random from MacCarthy’s book: C.L. [the discretion is my own—P.B.] came in and I drew her portrait. We talked a lot about fucking and agreed how much we loved it. Afterwards we fondled one another a little and I put my penis between her legs. She then arranged herself so that when I pushed a little it went into her. I pushed it in about six times and then we kissed and went into lunch.[28] Gill, incidentally, was a strong opponent of artificial contraception. It is a curious thing that, while he had three daughters by his wife, he does not seem to have had any children outside marriage. I think we can safely assume that he would have accepted responsibility for them if he had. MacCarthy gives what might be the answer in her account of his exchanges with Dr Helena Wright, well-known as an adviser on sexual matters and advocate of contraception. After telling her ‘You are entitled to believe in and work for a matriarchal state. Men are equally entitled to resist it’, he continues: ‘I believe in birth control by the man by means of:– (1) Karetza. (2) Abstinence from intercourse. (3) Withdrawal before ejaculation. (4) French letters’ but ‘I don’t think 3 and 4 are good. I don’t think abstinence from orgasm is necessarily a bad thing. It depends on the state of mind and states of mind can be cultivated’.[29] ‘Karetza’ is a form of sexual activity without orgasm. Gill, as we know, did not practise abstinence from intercourse. Karetza may also explain the willingness of the most improbable women to have sex with him. They didn’t take it very seriously. But this brings us to the question of sexual relations with his daughters. Considering the impact her revelations have had on Gill’s reputation, MacCarthy’s attitude, expressed in the Introduction, is surprisingly casual: There is nothing so very unusual in Gill’s succession of adulteries, some casual, some long-lasting, several pursued within the protective walls of his own household. Nor is there anything so absolutely shocking about his long record of incestuous relationships with sisters and with daughters: we are becoming conscious that incest was (and is) a great deal more common than was generally imagined. Even his preoccupations and his practical experiments [sic. She only mentions one—P.B.] with bestiality, though they may strike one as bizarre, are not in themselves especially horrifying or amazing. Stranger things have been recorded.[30] Well, yes, certainly, stranger things have been recorded. But, she continues: ‘It is the context which makes them so alarming, which gives one such a frisson. This degree of sexual anarchy within the ostentatiously well-regulated household astonishes’.[31] But what is truly astonishing is the change of mood that occurs at the end of her introduction: ‘No one who knew him well failed to like him, to respond to him. And his personality is still enormously arresting. In his agility, his social and sexual mobility, his professional expertise and purposefulness, the totally unpompous seriousness with which he looks anew at what he sees as the real issues, he seems extremely modern, almost of our own age’.[32] But maybe she is wrong about ‘our own age’ catching up with Gill’s ‘sexual mobility’. At least if the man chipping away at the BBC’s Prospero and Ariel can be taken as representative of our age. Indeed, in an article written for The Guardian she suggests that ‘Gill in 2006 would no doubt be in prison’.[33] The only deeds she records that could have landed him in prison are of course his sexual relations with his two eldest daughters, Elizabeth and Petra. This takes up one paragraph in MacCarthy’s book: For instance in July 1921, when Betty was sixteen, Gill records how one afternoon while Mary and Joan were in Chichester he made her ‘come’, and she him, to watch the effect on the anus: ‘(1) Why should it’, he queries, ‘contract during the orgasm, and (2) why should a woman’s do the same as a man’s?’ This is characteristic of Gill’s quasi-scientific curiosity: his urge to know and prove. It is very much a part of the Gill family inheritance. (His doctor brother Cecil, in his memoirs, incidentally shows a comparable fascination with the anus.) It can be related to Gill’s persona of domestic potentate, the notion of owning all the females in his household. It can even perhaps be seen as an imaginative overriding of taboos: the three Gill daughters all grew up, so far as one can see, to be contented and well-adjusted married women. Happy family photographs, thronging with small children, bear out their later record of fertility. But the fact remains, and it is a contradiction which Gill, with his discipline of logic, his antipathy for nonsense, must in his heart of hearts have been aware of, that his private behaviour was at war with his public image—confused it, undermined it. Things did not go together. There is a clear anxiety in his diary description of visiting one of the younger daughter’s bedrooms: ‘stayed ½ hour – put p. in her a/hole’. He ends almost on a note of panic, ‘This must stop’.[34] The paragraph begins ‘For instance…’ and in the Guardian article I quoted earlier MacCarthy says that ‘during those years at Ditchling, Gill was habitually abusing his two elder daughters’ so we must assume that these are not the only examples. But, so far as I know, this paragraph is all there is in the public domain, the sole basis on which Gill has been characterised as a ‘paedophile’ (MacCarthy gives no examples of sexual relations with any others among the many young teenagers and children in Gill’s circle). We’re not told if these two incidents are typical, if similar things occurred frequently, if these are particularly bad cases, or if there is worse. Nor are we told, in the second case, if, when he says ‘This must stop’, it did stop, or if this is—or isn’t—the only case of penetration occurring. In 2017, the Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft, which has a very important collection of his work, put on the exhibition Eric Gill—The Body, designed to face up to this embarrassing part of its legacy. This might have been an opportunity to explore the Diaries further, but it does not appear to have been taken. Instead, the assumption was that all that needed to be known was known. To quote an account prepared by Index on Censorship: ‘awareness of this aspect of his biography is widespread and has been fully discussed and debated’.[35] The approach was to invite visitors to the exhibition to respond to the works—many of them naked bodies, lovers embracing, detailed studies of male genitalia—in light of the knowledge that they were done by a man who abused his daughters. According to a statement by the Museum director, Nathaniel Hepburn: This exhibition is the result of two years of intense discussions both within the museum and beyond, including contributing to an article in The Art Newspaper in July 2015, hosting #museumhour twitter discussions on 22 February 2016 on ‘tackling tricky subjects’, a workshop day with colleagues from museums across the country hosted at the museum with Index on Censorship, and a panel discussion at 2016 Museums Association Conference in Glasgow. Through these discussions Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft feels compelled to confront an issue which is unpleasant, difficult and extremely sensitive. It has by no means been an easy process yet we feel confident that not turning a blind eye to this story is the right thing to do. This exhibition is just the beginning of the museum’s process of taking a more open and honest position with the visitor and we already have legacy plans in place including ensuring there will continue to be public acknowledgement of the abuse within the museum’s display.[36] It was a delicate exercise. There were consultations with charities helping survivors of abuse, there were two writers in residence, helplines, and support literature for people who could have been adversely affected by the content of the show. The sculptor Cathie Pilkington was co-curator and had a little exhibition of her own, based around a wooden doll Gill had made for Petra when she was four years old. In its atmosphere of high seriousness, it was all a far cry from MacCarthy’s summing up of the life at Ditchling, where the cases of misconduct she describes occurred – she says there's no record of them occurring later: It was not an unhappy childhood, far from it. All accounts, from the Gill and Pepler children, the children of the Cribbs and the other Ditchling families, so closely interrelated through the life of the workshops and the life around the chapel, verge on the idyllic. Simple pleasures, intense friendships, great events – like the annual Ditchling Flower Show and the sports on Ditchling Common, with Father Vincent, as timekeeper, stopwatch in hand; followed by a giant Ditchling children’s tea party. There were profound advantages in growing up at Ditchling. But the children always felt – this was the price of self-containment – that it was other people who were odd.[37] Among the ‘frequently asked questions’ prepared for the exhibition, there was this: Isn’t it true that Gill’s daughters did not regard themselves as ‘abused’? They are reported as having normal happy and fulfilled lives and Petra at almost 90 commented that she wasn’t embarrassed by revelations about her family life and that they just ‘took it for granted’. Aren’t we all perhaps making more of this than the people affected?[38] The quote comes from an obituary of the weaver, Petra Tegetmeier, which appeared in the Guardian: A remarkable aspect of those liaisons with Petra is that she seems not only to have been undamaged by the experience, but to have become the most calm, reflective and straightforward wife and mother. When I asked her about it shortly before her 90th birthday, she assured me that she was not at all embarrassed—‘We just took it for granted’. She agreed that had she gone to school she might have learned how unconventional her father’s behaviour was. He had, she explained, ‘endless curiosity about sex’. His bed companions were not only family but domestic helpers and even (to my astonishment when I heard about it) the teacher who ran the school at Pigotts.[39] The Museum’s reply to the question was as follows: Elizabeth was no longer alive when Fiona McCarthy’s book was published, and those who met Petra certainly record a calm woman who managed to come to terms with her past abuse, and still greatly admired her father as an artist. I don’t think that we should try to imagine her process to reaching this acceptance as we know too little about her own experiences. So, although we are told that ‘we know too little about her own experiences’ the idea is reaffirmed that ‘her past abuse’ was a problem she had to come to terms with, despite her own statement that it wasn’t. A certain disquiet about the position of Petra in all this is expressed by some of the people involved in the project. One of the writers in residence, Bethan Roberts, wrote a short story about her called ‘Gospels’, which was posted on the Ditchling Museum website but now seems to have disappeared. The other, Alison Macleod, commented: Yes, the biography is upsetting disturbing in part and there was clearly a history of abuse that is without question. But it is made slightly more complex by the fact that the two daughters [who] were abused said they were unembarrassed about it, not angry about it, loved their father, and didn’t give the response that perhaps I’m imagining, or some people expected them to give – to be angry about it and condemn their father’s behaviour. They didn’t. So maybe they have internalised their trauma, but you could say that that response is almost patronising to the two women, the elderly women who were very clear about what they felt, so it goes into a loop of paradoxes of riddles that you cannot really ever solve.[40] The resident artist, Cathie Pilkington, carved a series of heads based on the doll Gill had made for Petra and labelled them ‘Petra’. Steph Fuller, an artistic director of the Museum who said that she had been on the outside of the project but ‘recruited while the show was on’ felt uneasy about this: The real legacy issue, which I am grappling with at the moment, is that the voice that was not in the room, was Petra’s. She was very front and centre as far as Cathie’s commission was concerned, but there is something about how the work conflated Petra with the doll and being a child victim, that I’m a bit uncomfortable about actually. There is lots of evidence of Petra’s views about her experiences, and how she internalised them, that was not present at all anywhere. It is easy to project things on to someone being just a victim and Petra would have completely rejected that. In terms of legacy how we continue to talk about Gill and his child sexual abuse and other sexual activities which were fairly well outside the mainstream, I think—yes acknowledge it, but also—how? I am feeling my way round it at the moment. There are plenty of living people, her children and grandchildren who are protective of her, quite reasonably. I need to feel satisfied that when we speak about Petra, we represent her side of it and we don’t just tell it from the point of view of the abuser, to put it bluntly. If it is about Petra, how do we do it in a way that respects her views and her family’s views?[41] According to Rachel Cooke, who was brought in as a sort of resident journalist, Pilkington had commented on the doll: ‘This is a very potent object. It looks to me just like a penis’. She continues: Her installation, central to which are five scaled-up versions of the head of Petra’s doll (one decorated by her 11-year-old daughter, Chloe), will explore different aspects of Gill’s practice, and the way we are inclined to project his life on to his work, sometimes in contradiction of the facts: ‘The tendency—if there is a picture of a figure—is to chuck all this interpretation on it…it can’t just be a beautiful drawing or a taut piece of carving. But sometimes it is. Where, I’m asking, is Petra in all this? There are aspects to her life apart from the fact that her father had sex with her’.[42] Exactly. Though I for one was left wondering how exactly her installation—a sort of doll’s house full of little knicknacks including the doll’s heads—contributed to our understanding that Petra and Elizabeth were something other than just victims of sex abuse, and that there was more, much more, to their relation with their father than the sex. A catalogue was produced.[43] Apart from Cathie Pilkington’s installation it consisted largely of highly representational life drawings, including some of his studies of his friends’ (male) genitalia. Material that will appeal to the ‘art connoisseur’ for whom Gill expressed such lofty contempt. It leaves me wishing that he had taken Thomas Aquinas’s instruction to imitate nature in its way of working not in its effects—the renunciation of post-Renaissance representational art—more seriously, as Gleizes did when he advanced into non-representational art, an art that Gleizes claimed might eventually be worthy of comparison with the non-representational art of the oriental carpet.[44] Rachel Cooke quotes Fiona MacCarthy saying: She has watched in ‘dismay’ as the fact of Gill’s abuse of his daughters has grown to become the thing that defines him. ‘My book was never a book about incest, which is what one would imagine from many hysterical contemporary responses’, she says. ‘It was a book about the multifaceted life of a multi-talented artist and an absorbingly interesting man’. As people demand the demolition of his sculpture in public places—the Stations of the Cross in Westminster Cathedral, Prospero and Ariel at Broadcasting House—she asks where this will end: ‘Get rid of Gill, but who chooses the artist with morals so impeccable that they could take his place?…I would not deny that Gill’s sex drive was unusually strong and in some cases aberrant’, she says, ‘but to reduce the motivation of a richly complicated human being to such simplification is ludicrous’. Reducing art to a matter of the sexual irregularities of the artist, she believes, ‘can only in the end seriously damage our appreciation of the rich possibilities of art in general’.[45] MacCarthy’s book is impressive and enjoyable and does indeed give a good account of the ‘multifaceted life of a multi-talented artist and an absorbingly interesting man’. I have no problems with the mention of sexual relations with Elizabeth and Petra, which are unquestionably part of the story. But the book was sold vigorously and no doubt successfully on the basis of the scandals it revealed. That may have been the responsibility of the publisher, but MacCarthy played this element up in her Introduction, which has an atmosphere all its own and may well have been the only part most of the reviewers bothered to read. The result is that, as she says, ‘the fact of Gill’s abuse of his daughters has grown to become the thing that defines him’.[46] I have no idea why the man who attacked Gill’s statue or the people who have signed the 38 degrees petition have felt so strongly on the matter. It may well be that they themselves suffered some sort of abuse in their childhood, and I can hardly blame them for their feelings confronted with the work of a man whom they know, simply and exclusively, as an abuser. The more so when the BBC’s own ‘culture editor’ characterises him as ‘a monster, a depraved paedophile who…committed horrific sexual crimes’. But it also needs to be understood that different kinds of sexual activity can cover a wide variety of feelings and reactions on the part of both ‘perpetrator’ and ‘victim’, and that a blanket categorisation that would throw Eric Gill and his relations with his daughters (unquestionably very loving independently of the sexual side) into the same category as Jimmy Savile and his relations with his victims doesn’t contribute very much to our understanding of what it is to be human. Peter Brooke Peter Brooke is a painter and writer, mainly on interactions between art, politics and religion. He has a PhD from Cambridge on ‘Controversies in Ulster Presbyterianism, 1790-1836’ (1980) and he is the author of the major study of the Cubist painter, Albert Gleizes: Albert Gleizes, For and Against the Twentieth Century (Yale University Press 2001). [1] Kate Feehan, ‘Man scales BBC Broadcasting House and spends four hours destroying sculpture by paedophile artist Eric Gill’ Daily Mail (12 January 2022) . [2] Katie Razzall, ‘The Artwork vs the artist’ BBC (13 January 2022) . [3] Trevor Stanski, ‘Remove BBC Statue by Paedophile Eric Gill’ (2021) . [4] ibid. [5] Andrew Doyle, ‘Eric Gill’s crimes were unforgivable, but his statue is blameless’ The Spectator (16 January 2022) . [6] Rachel Cooke, ‘Eric Gill: can we separate the artist from the abuser?’ The Observer (9 April 2017) . [7] I should say that the use of the word ‘paedophile’ as a synonym for ‘child molester’ seems to me to be an abuse of language. To characterise someone who wants to rape children as a ‘paedophile’ is rather like characterising someone who wants to burn books as a ‘bibliophile’. [8] I discuss Gleizes’s relations with Coomaraswamy, with a glancing reference to Gill, in my essay ‘Albert Gleizes, Ananda Coomaraswamy and “tradition”’, accessible on my website at . I am the author of the major study of Gleizes: Peter Brooke, Albert Gleizes: For and Against the Twentieth Century (Yale University Press 2001). [9] Eric Gill, ‘Slavery and Freedom’, in Art Nonsense and other essays (Cassel and Co Ltd & Francis Walterson, 1929) 1. [10] D.H. Lawrence, ‘Eric Gill’s Art Nonsense’ Book Collector’s Quarterly (no XII, Oct-Dec 1933) 1-7, quoted in Malcolm Yorke, Eric Gill, Man of Flesh and Spirit (Constable 2000) 48-9. Yorke goes on to quote Gill saying that Lady Chatterly’s Lover ‘states the Catholic view of sex and marriage more clearly and with more enthusiasm than most of our text books’. [11] Fiona MacCarthy, Eric Gill (Faber and Faber 1989). The book was republished in 2017. [12] ibid vii-viii. [13] ibid x. [14] ibid xi. [15] ibid 20. [16] Eric Gill, Autobiography (The Right Book Club 1944) 53-4. [17] MacCarthy (n 11) 290. [18] Gill (n 16). [19] MacCarthy (n 11) xi-xii. [20] Gill (n 16) 132. [21] MacCarthy (n 11) x. [22] ibid 214. [23] ibid 212. [24] ibid 287. [25] At least that is how I interpret the passage in the Autobiography, 223-7. [26] Gill (n 16) 164. [27] MacCarthy (n 11) xi. [28] ibid 262. [29] ibid 261. [30] ibid viii. [31] ibid. [32] ibid. [33] Fiona MacCarthy, ‘Written in stone’ The Guardian (22 July 2006) . [34] MacCarthy (n 11) 155-6. [35] Julia Farrington, ‘Case Study—Eric Gill/The Body’ (15 May 2019) . [36] Nathaniel Hepburn, ‘Eric Gill / The Body: Statement from the Director’ Index On Censorship (7 May 2019) . [37] MacCarthy (n 11) 154. [38] ‘Eric Gill / The Body: Q&A for visitor services’ Index On Censorship (7 May 2019) . [39] Patrick Nuttgens, ‘Unorthodox liaisons’ The Guardian (6 January 1999) . [40] Julia Farrington, Case Study (n 35). [41] ibid. [42] Cooke (n 6). [43] Nathaniel Hepburn and Catherine Pilkington, Eric Gill: the body, with Catherine Pilkington, Doll for Petra Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft, Exhibition catalogue (29 April-3 September 2017). [44] Unpublished ms note in the Gleizes archive formerly kept at Aubard. [45] Cooke (n 6). [46] MacCarthy (n 11).

The Tanner Lectures on Human Values are prestigious gatherings of globally renowned scholars across the humanities and the sciences. This year’s lectures addressed the questions of Providing for a nation’s health, in a global context, where philosophers, economists, a physician and a social psychologist offered their take on different aspects of the healthcare response to global pandemics. In this piece, students, research fellows, and visiting fellows currently at Clare Hall, Cambridge provide their individual and distinct reflections on the lectures. They highlight a continual need for openness and multi-disciplinary engagement surrounding complex, global, and often polarising issues. The reflections presented herein reflect the views and ideas of scientists, philosophers, sociologists, and healthcare professionals from diverse backgrounds and nationalities. Beyond sharing these different and complementary perspectives, we aim to promote diverse, informative and welcoming forums for scholarly engagement in the pressing global issues of our time. Introduction The Tanner Lectures on Human Values[1] were founded in July 1978 at Clare Hall, Cambridge, by the American scholar, industrialist, and philanthropist, Obert Clark Tanner. His hope was to foster a legacy of lectures which ‘will contribute to the intellectual and moral life of mankind’. Tanner stated: ‘I see them simply as a search for a better understanding of human behaviour and human values. This understanding may be pursued for its own intrinsic worth, but it may also eventually have practical consequences for the quality of personal and social life’. The Tanner Lectures are financed by an endowment, and other gifts, donated to the University of Utah exclusively for this purpose. Permanent lectureship has only been granted to eight other universities outside Cambridge. Outstanding scholars or leaders in broadly defined fields of human values—which transcend ethnic, national, religious, or ideological distinctions—are recognized and honoured through the invitation. Their lectures are also published as a written version of their presentation. This year’s Tanner Clare Hall lectures[2] invited presenters to discuss broad philosophical, financial, political, and artistic aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic. The two evenings featured six speakers from various disciplines. During the first evening, Professor Allen Buchanan, an American philosopher, was invited to speak on ‘The relationship between national and global health’. His presentation covered several areas, including how one defines ‘crisis’, when it is ongoing, as was the case for the duration of the Covid-19 pandemic. Two responses to his presentation followed, and were delivered by Cécile Fabre, Oxford Professor of Political Philosophy and Senior Research Fellow in Politics, who addressed moral duty and how it might be sustained, and by Sir Paul Tucker, a Research Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School, who commented on public health governance and its financing. For the second evening’s topic, ‘The consequences for healthcare practice, globally’, the invited speakers preferred a less hierarchical order of presenters and shared equal ‘rank’. Oxford’s Professor Trish Greenhalgh pleaded for the prudence and prevention masks offered; Professor Ama de-Graft Aikins, the British Academy’s Global Professor at University College, London, provided a compelling and colourful portrait of pandemic realities and resilience strategies in Ghana and other African countries; and Alexander Bird, Cambridge’s Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy, contrasted and compared the costs approved and disbursed by the NHS in ‘standard’ cases with those associated with Covid-19 expenses in this pandemic. Clare Hall students, research fellows, and two visiting fellows reflected on which of the Tanner 2022 messages proposed by this year’s speakers were most salient. We considered the lecture content and the subsequent, animated, discussions held during the question periods and social interactions immediately following the presentations. We submit these independently written perspectives, inviting readers to consider commonalities and discrepancies between them. Beyond the narrative, we discuss and highlight the role, and importance, of multidisciplinary and diverse perspectives in global health issues. Reflections An Interdisciplinary Pandemic (Lauren Adams) As someone whose academic work lies in modelling the spread of infectious diseases, and who has practical experience of working in healthcare during the on-going Covid-19 pandemic, I was interested to see how a lecture series focusing on human values would tackle this issue. Though not necessitated by the title, it was unsurprising that every speaker mentioned Covid-19. The first speaker, Prof. Allen Buchanan, spoke about the nature of crisis. He proclaimed that crises are declared promptly, but argued that the same cannot be said for announcing when the crisis is over. This made me wonder: although I would argue the Covid-19 pandemic is on-going, would I still consider it a national crisis? The second part of the talk was dedicated to distinguishing the differences between imperfect and perfect duties.[3] In the discussion that followed, much attention was devoted to the speaker’s proposed view on vaccinations. Buchanan suggested that ‘endless booster vaccinations’, in light of extreme vaccine supply issues across the globe, were unsustainable. This opinion led to an emotionally charged debate between the audience and the speakers. This was my first experience of highly emotive arguments defending very different points of view from academics from a broad range of backgrounds. I realised how limited an individual’s work can be if they only consider their own expertise. Although there are many factors that contribute to the spread and management of infectious diseases that I cannot model, I can consider them in future discussions of my findings. I hope taking this away from the event will lead to my work being better informed and more well-rounded. Global health and the duty to help: some practical considerations (Luke Neill) There were two broad questions that I thought were most salient in this year’s Tanner lectures: how can we prevent extreme harm to people both in this pandemic and the next; and how can we institutionalise the duty to alleviate pandemic-related problems in other countries? On the latter point, Prof. Allen Buchanan and Prof. Cécile Fabre set the groundwork. Using the Kantian distinction between perfect and imperfect duties,[4] they underlined the difficulty of the ‘imperfect’ duty to adopt a positive end, or, in the case made by Prof. Buchanan, to provide pandemic relief to less developed countries. Fabre explored these duties in relation to non-compliance: if, in contravention of an agreement, one country fails to provide any support, is there a duty for other countries to ‘take up the slack’? And if so, how can that be enforced? As Prof. Ama de-Graft Aikins asserted the following evening, there was a notable failure to provide adequate vaccine supplies to Africa, showing that the duty remains unfulfilled by most Western nations. One solution, offered by Sir Paul Tucker, was an economic one. Tucker asserted that countries must internalise their incentive to help others because it is in their self-interest (avoiding the re-importation of the pandemic, mass migrations, and creating allies, etc). Moreover, he proposed that this could be furthered by adding a second ‘player’ to the currently existing world health organisation, headed by the West and China, respectively, which could then compete for greater provision of services in developing countries. Whether or not this is a viable structure, the idea that the existing WHO, beleaguered by universal veto rights and poor funding, was in many ways unable to provide comprehensive support to developing countries was a striking point. The lectures were effective in exploring how the WHO and national governments had to balance the demands of the scientific community with the competing economic, political, and social questions, complicating their approach to pandemic relief.[5] The discussion was sometimes waylaid by Buchanan’s comments about the low efficacy of ‘endless booster vaccinations’ and the need for implementing gene testing instead, which provoked tense scrutiny from health professionals in the audience. Nevertheless, the bleak diagnosis as to the state of our existing global health institutions, and the difficulties of enforcing the duty to aid poorer nations, was a question that ought to weigh heavily on those interested in responding to the next pandemic. Creatively responding to Covid-19 in Africa (Lundi-Anne Omam) One of the presentations that marked me most during the lectures was that of Prof. Ama de-Graft Aikins who, in her response to the presentation given by Prof. Allen Buchanan, talked about how creative arts in Ghana helped shape the response to Covid-19. I am familiar with how different forms of arts can communicate key prevention messages to communities. However, it was interesting to listen to Prof. de-Graft Aikins speak of artists in Ghana creatively communicating about Covid-19 in their bid to demystify beliefs surrounding this new virus which was largely considered to be a ‘colonial virus’. Coming from an African country, I easily related to Prof. de-Graft Aikins’ presentation as communities in Africa relate very well to communications in local languages and dialects they speak. What’s more, means of communication using forms like textile designs and murals speak to the recognition of African cultures and traditions as important aspects of disease prevention.[6] The Covid-19 outbreak affected many parts of Africa with total deaths recorded being 250,948 as of 29 March 2022.[7] Public health containment measures, especially the introduction of vaccines, have seen resistance in Africa.[8] A holistic approach that acknowledges the impact of tradition and culture is thus particularly important in measures aiming to contain the spread of Covid-19 in Africa, as was the case in Ghana. Previous academics have published on the role tradition and culture play in the spread of pandemics.[9] Thus, the use of different forms of arts, including music, textile designs, and murals that encompass many forms of expression, are creative mediums through which stories are told. These creative means of communication could, and should, be used to further strengthen the Covid-19 response in Africa. The Buchanan compromise meets (needs!) scientific inference (Michael Nelson) As a scientist working in computational analysis, my instinct in the face of data and inference is to consider the modelling, prior knowledge, and uncertainty one can ascribe to that data. The model is a typically parametric representation of the system under study and how that system might change when other parameters (e.g. time) are varied.[10] Initially assumptions about those parameters are captured by the prior knowledge.[11] The output of such a model will be some predicted central value of the system, and an associated level of confidence in that value. Variations in this value due to external and systematic factors are absorbed into the model uncertainty. For me the significance of models, priors, and uncertainties is particularly prescient for the on-going Covid-19 pandemic, where government policy, law enforcement, and everyday life have been affected by the outputs of epidemiological data science models (the model inference). Given the significant variability in measures by which government response is considered successful, including mortality, infection rates and economic outcomes, and the immutable role of uncertainty and prior assumptions in these models, it is necessary to look beyond the pure data science approach in dealing with such crises. Which other features require careful consideration in any government’s response? In this year’s Tanner lectures, Prof. Allen Buchanan emphasised the influence of nationalism and cosmopolitanism in Covid-19 responses, and how dealing with Covid-19 would have been more optimal if the approach had been positioned between these two extremes. Buchanan proposed that purely nationalistic and purely cosmopolitan responses were suboptimal for dealing with the problem. I found this compromise sensible and well-motivated, but questioned the lack of pragmatic, scientific treatment in Buchanan’s argument, a viewpoint that seemed common among the scientifically aligned attendees. That said, there are important considerations to take home from Buchanan’s pragmatic compromise, particularly the role of spending and economic efficiency in responses to the pandemic. This point was further emphasised by the economic arguments set forth by Sir Paul Tucker and Prof Alexander Bird on how a Buchanan compromise could be realised in the realm of international banking and by international agencies. This pragmatic response would be well served if integrated with the results of scientific modelling and healthcare analysis. My feeling is that much could be gained by combining the economic practicalities of the Buchanan argument with the necessary scientific models of the impact and development of the pandemic. One approach can be seen to triage elements of the other, and it will become increasingly important for scientific, economic, and philosophical camps to actively discuss and debate these issues, strengthening the Buchanan compromise and improving upon it. Public Health Crises and Trust in Government (Will Hanna) Professor Allan Buchanan’s 2022 Clare Hall Tanner lectures offered important critical reflections on the normative desirability of prolonged emergency measures and widespread restrictions on conduct as response measures to public health crises. Such reflections involved confronting difficult questions about how public institutions ought to balance rights and responsibilities in the face of significant resource constraints. One constraint which was tactfully considered by Buchanan, and which had received less consideration in my own thinking prior to attending the lecture, was the importance of designing institutional responses to public health crises with an eye to preserving the public’s belief in the authority of government—what Buchanan called ‘sociological legitimacy’. Building on the typology of legitimacy crises first developed by German sociologist and philosopher, Jürgen Habermas, Buchanan explored how public health crises could put strain on the people’s trust in their governing institutions.[12] The consequences of a deficit of trust became all too apparent over the duration of the pandemic in the many examples of widespread non-compliance with government policy and the initiation of protests movements in response to public institutions’ perceived mishandling of the pandemic response. Buchanan pointed out how important the governments’ task of clear communication under conditions of uncertainty is in preserving the sociological legitimacy of institutions. Any public health response must take measures to preserve trust in government lest it undermine its own ability to steer individuals’ choices in the direction of the common good. In the question period following the lecture, some members of the audience challenged Buchanan’s framework for its lack of scientific rigour. His framework was, they claimed, an exercise in abstraction which often glossed over details which might be considered vitally important in other forms of scholarly inquiry. Indeed, the assumption built into Buchanan’s model which struck me as most obviously problematic was the delimitation of the concept of ‘relevant harm’ to that which individuals suffer directly because of contracting a disease (ie, without including, for example, knock-on harms resulting from a dysfunctional healthcare system). However, Buchanan’s framework does not stand or fall on its ability to ‘get everything right’. In the spirit of the founding goal of the Tanner Lectures, I think that it ought to be evaluated on its ability to render the conversation on these vital matters more articulate. It certainly had this effect on my own thinking. Dialogue, debate, and imperfect freedoms (Yoanna Skrobik) Intensive care units were my professional home. They provide front row seats during pandemics, with gritty, up-close observation of illness and death. Being there convinces ‘front-liners’ that our emotional perspective is the most real. Is this why the 2022 Tanner Lectures triggered such strong and discordant reactions? On one hand, these erudite moments in the Tanner Lecture ‘birthplace’, Cambridge, are the epitome of the wondrous luxury of celebrating intellectual debate. On the other, the inherent detachment from my Covid-19 reality and that experienced by many colleagues worldwide made this distancing from the grit seem surreal. I most enjoyed the knowledge, grace, humour, and deep irony with which Prof. de-Graft Aikins described ‘the colonial virus’. The (contentious) previous evening’s speaker’s tenets, particularly those addressing what privilege, as opposed to relative disadvantage, means were deconstructed with quiet dignity. The lecture contained interesting, grounded, and well-researched facts, along with good stories. Examples of the humour with which Ghanaians deal with irrational or harmful attitudes and actions among the egregiously misinformed and/or misguided ‘privileged’, was inspiring. Finally, how much art, from cartoon humour to woven cloth patterns to public spaces covered in paint and imagery, serves as a public information-conveying vessel, in addition to its role in fostering hope, was both useful and entertaining. Such artistic expression allows Ghanaians to own the narrative. I thought how much there is to learn from such tangible wisdom and perspective. The amalgam of Sir Paul Tucker’s response with Prof. Alexander Bird’s analysis of Covid-19’s costs, weaving national and international politics, crisis management optics, and general mayhem through financial and public health consideration issues, were eye-openers. Their lively debate at the end added a lighter humour to two lectures that would have otherwise been very serious indeed. One discomfort remains: intellectual conflict of interest necessarily plagues experts.[13] Prestigious lecture invitations highlight, and heighten, academic and perceived hierarchical ranking, anchor professional identity, and may help promotions within universities. Are these ‘experts’ therefore more likely to keep a narrower view as it helps maintain ‘expert’ status and control? Does this preclude a broader and perhaps more accurate view on more high-stake ‘what should be done[14] in a pandemic’ questions? Thoughtful scholars, like Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, contend that only multifaceted and multidisciplinary approaches can procure any semblance of credible substance. Such transparency, stemming from parameters grounded in what is known and understood, should be procured by considering multiple data sources, followed by sharing knowledge and discussing its meaning. A priori, any field’s academics would consider results obtained using multiple research methods within their area. Once experts from each relevant discipline have shared the information garnered in this way, dialogue between them would then bring a broader perspective. This is arguably the only rational approach to complex topics, whether the Covid pandemic or related to other equally multifaceted subjects. If approaches to public health, which can be perceived to override individual choices, are to be implemented, the exercise described above must precede their implementation. Instead, we witnessed pandemic-related information laced with ‘false news’. Few rigorous journalists clarified information beyond reporting on health care system capacity limits and governmental imposition of health care measures. Clare Hall’s 2022 Tanner lecturers diverged radically in both content and opinions, and some steadfastly held on to narrower interpretations during the discussion periods following their lecture. What could be considered credible, and desirable, was received differently still by the audience, adding layers to the high-stakes moral quagmires, elegantly invoked in Prof. Cécile Fabre’s response to the first lecturer. Should we screen, and thus censor, lecture content accuracy or bias if the event’s intent is to ‘contribute to the intellectual and moral life of mankind’? Or do we acknowledge that here, as in democracy, expressing views where context adds to their credibility is not perfect but the best we’ve got? The frustration at not finding a solution to how alternative, accountable, and transparent ways to minimise the harm imprecision or misinformation can create—a feeling I experienced often throughout the pandemic—remains. Global health institutions and disciplinary pessimism (Elina Oinas) As a sociologist whose work focuses on global health and illness, the key argument of the opening lecture by Prof. Allen Buchanan was the observation that health is a societal issue seen to be totally held in the hands of nation states. This contrasts with how pandemics such as Covid-19 clearly show the need to have a global infrastructure for health emergencies, and possibly even for health care, especially in regions where states do not deliver or procure practical or helpful resources. The obviousness of this insight is astounding, particularly in the light of the lack of discussion on how the situation could be improved. Despite all talk of globalisation, in health the nation state seems to be the unit of analysis and practice. Institutions like the WHO are important but vulnerable, and do not address the key issues of actual implementation of policies. Prof. Buchanan suggested that any new view on globalised health care cannot be based on an extreme nationalistic nor cosmopolitan view on duties and responsibilities for ‘the distant stranger’. He was thus not challenging the nation state structure, but instead suggesting a global structure in addition to the existing national ones. The remainder of the discussion, however, confirmed the complexity and even impossibility of any such propositions being feasible. Thus, the Tanner talks in total underlined the different disciplinary contributions to how, on an abstract level, a global health agenda will not be achieved. The ambitious goal of the event, to create an interdisciplinary platform for discussing future objectives for global health, in my view fell on disciplinary narrowness, inability to communicate across fields, and general pessimism. Sir Paul Tucker, the economist in the room, contended that while there are serious arguments of self-interest for the wealthy nation states to engage in a global health care structure, nation states will find such duties more voluntary than obliging. Prof. Cécile Fabre agreed that a binding global contract is a radical proposition and one that is very hard to achieve, as seen in wars. The theoretical tenor of the first day’s lectures took on a more concrete tone during the second day, when public health Professor Trish Greenhalgh applied a pragmatist’s view on Covid-19 policymaking, urging to trust sufficient, partial, and contingent knowledge instead of demanding absolute certainty. Prof. Ama de-Graft Aikins pointed out that African health systems have always dealt with complexities and been able to diversify policies depending on different domestic and international pressures. She addressed phenomenological violence when moral failures to distribute vaccines to ‘distant strangers’ occur, and how the denial of equal status as global citizens affects trust in biomedical health messages. Her talk was also the only one directly addressing lay people and their ability to deal with multiple messages. Prof. Alexander Bird brought the discussion back to the economy by asking if not the focus on Covid-19 only leads to an economic disaster and neglect of other diseases, further advocating for a consideration of a complex policy landscape beyond Covid-19. A notable absence in the panel discussion was the microbe itself, claimed the audience question by a medical historian. The panel was no doubt highly human-centred and held little epidemiological and virological expertise. In the comments section the diverse scales of the talks spurred provocative questions and comments from the audience, especially those working more strictly in healthcare, arguing that the philosophers, economists, and public policy experts missed important aspects of the knowledge required to even grasp the real issues. The heated debate brought me one insight above anything else: while the Covid-19 really has opened our eyes to the necessity of an interdisciplinary health policy dialogue, as academics we are still not up to the challenge. The pandemic is inevitably a societal phenomenon that neither medicine, pharmacology, vaccine industry, philosophy, economy, public administration, or social psychology can solve alone. Even with a 100% protective vaccine, the challenges of cost, manufacturing, distribution, and incentive for lay people to take it, would remain. The Tanner lectures highlighted challenges inherent to interdisciplinary discussion, especially in the face of a public crisis. The speakers were astonishingly unwilling to listen and respect the expertise of another’s field of knowledge. The philosophers seemed unable to examine their own biases and narrow conviction, yet willing to integrate hard scientific arguments involving efficacy and viral contagion into their discourse. Thus, my own take home message was that practices for developing interdisciplinary negotiation are urgently needed. Not to force everyone to share one framework of ontological, epistemic, not moral or ethical standpoints, but to better negotiate what Prof. Greenhalgh called sufficient reliability for action. There is a strong tradition of discussions on interdisciplinarity from Thomas Kuhn[15] to Donna Haraway,[16] but our current crisis thinking does not seem to take lessons from them. Interdisciplinarity is often celebrated as the future of science yet it is hard to practise.[17] This, of course, is also built in the competitive nature of contemporary academia, where winning, and presenting the prevalent truth, dominates approaches that are open for negotiation, uncertainty and partial, contingent truths. Alternative traditions, however, flourish alongside mechanistic positivism, with multiple roots in both Bayesian probability theories,[18] game theories,[19] as well as anthropology and multi-species post-human feminist traditions.[20] What is new is that those are urgently needed for health policy making, complementing the more mechanistic evidence-based traditions.[21] The Tanner lectures were a case study on both the difficulty of and need for interdisciplinary, negotiative approaches. Discussion The different perceptions described by the Tanner lecture attendees reflect the diversity in their identity and in what most captured their interest or attention. The multidisciplinary diversity of presenters added to the range of topics and points of view. In addition, the commonality of the pandemic’s impact on each participant’s experience added a unique dimension of engagement. The threat it brought to quotidian aspects of our lives may have heightened emotion in receiving and interpreting presenters’ opinions. Beyond this, the heated debates surrounding some of the more polarising features proposed by the lecturers added a dimension of controversy that may have been considered unexpected in a highly prestigious lecture series with invited expert speakers. In welcoming participants to the Tanner lectures, the President of Clare Hall, Professor Alan Short, expressed his hope that the event would provide a ‘safe space to reflect more conceptually on the different models for healthcare available nationally and globally’. Theoretically, multidisciplinary environments increase the probability the setting will be perceived as ‘safe’ and thus promote overall creativity and performance.[22] Were the disagreements stemming from different perspectives overcome through open-minded dialogue in these Tanner lectures? This is less certain. Although different convictions among experts with heterogeneous backgrounds may hamper understanding of another’s field, anchored beliefs and biases might be set aside if sharing understanding is clearly defined as desirable. Highly prestigious university environments, however, may encourage invited speakers to wish, or feel an expectation, to project authority. Staking academic territory holds disadvantages, as was shown with the incrementally entrenched position witnessed in some presenters. This can in turn oppose participants, and become confrontational, thus eschewing opportunities to listen, learn and converse. Beyond this event, the absence, and evident benefit, of any public forum in which to hold such dialogues was brought up by several speakers and later in the audience’s comments and questions. One of the few rallying themes, beyond the challenges in creating such opportunities, was how significant such exchanges are for responding to a pandemic and beyond. Broader discourse in a variety of economic, political, philosophical, and scientific issues would surely benefit an ever more globalised world. The Tanner experience thus provided both a model for the challenges, while emphasizing the importance of, ensuring respectful and open-minded dialogue. Diversity and multidisciplinarity add richness and depth in numerous ways when studies consider the perspectives of individuals from different disciplines, or whose ethnic, cultural, racial backgrounds, gender, or opinions, vary. From morale and workplace performance, to profitability, creativity, and even educational breadth and accomplishments, multidisciplinarity holds unequivocal advantages in comparison to any comparable metrics produced by more homogeneous groups. Each Clare Hall student or scholar took with them new outlooks and thoughts. As each author produced their individual summary of impressions before sharing its content with others, both what was considered salient and memorable, and the order of hierarchical importance it held for each person, reflected their personal and academic identity. The genuine engagement with which we read each other’s Tanner reflections, and the interest it generated, led to further exchanges of ideas and knowledge. The lesson in opening horizons echoes publications describing how useful dialogue can be within intellectually respectful, multidisciplinary, and diverse groups. How being part of Clare Hall made this possible should be recognized, and indeed, celebrated. Conclusion Our experience leads to the following concluding thoughts. Lecture series, particularly those addressing complex topics, where the necessary knowledge to address it is broad, and necessarily incomplete for each expert, are most valuable to any audience when the invited speakers are themselves diverse and multidisciplinary. As with each of this piece’s authors, we trust this would make their experience and perspectives richer. What elements would make participants value exchanging ideas on par with the value placed on expressing them? How can open exchanges be fostered? These questions triggered sobering reflections as to our own academic penchant for critical analysis, to which adding an openness for dialogue seems essential. It is in this spirit of openness that communities must address questions related to human values, and for which forums such as the Tanner Lectures provide a much-needed mouthpiece for more universal scholarly engagement. Lauren Adams is a PhD student at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, working at the Disease Dynamics Unit in the Department of Veterinary Medicine. Will Hanna is an MPhil student in History at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge. Luke Neill is an MPhil student in History at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge. Michael Nelson is a Research Fellow at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, working at the European Bioinformatics Institute and the Wellcome-MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute. Elina Oinas is a Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, and a Professor at the Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki. Lundi-Anne Omam is a PhD student at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, working in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care and the Department of Psychiatry. Yoanna Skrobik is a Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Medicine at McGill University, and a Professor in the Department of Medicine at Queen’s University. Together, they formed the Clare Hall Tanner Lecture Working Group in 2022. [1] ‘The Tanner Lectures on Human Values’ (Clare Hall, Cambridge) accessed 10 April 2022. [2] Available online at . [3] Perfect duties are proscriptions of specific kinds of actions, where violation is morally blameworthy; imperfect duties are prescriptions of general ends, where fulfilling them is praiseworthy. Cf. Christopher Bennett, Joe Saunders, and Robert Stern (eds), Immanuel Kant. Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (Oxford University Press 2019). [4] ibid. [5] Eyal Benvenisti, ‘The WHO – Destined to Fail? Political Cooperation and the COVID-19 Pandemic’, American Journal of International Law (2020) 114(4) 588-597. [6] Ama de-Graft Aikins and Bernard Akoi-Jackson, ‘Colonial virus? Creative arts and public understanding of COVID-19 in Ghana’ (2020) 54(Suppl. 4) 86-96; Bronwen Evans, ‘African Patterns’ (Contemporary African Art, 2020) accessed 10 April 2022; Chris Spring, ‘Social Fabric: African Textiles Today’ (Google Arts & Culture, 2015) accessed 10 April 2022. [7] ‘Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)’ (Africa Center for Disease Control, 2022) accessed 10 April 2022. [8] Polydor Ngor Mutombo et al, ‘COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Africa: a call to action’ (2022) 10(3) Lancet Glob Health 320-321. [9] Angellar Manguvo and Benford Mafuvadze, ‘The impact of traditional and religious practices on the spread of Ebola in West Africa: time for a strategic shift’ (2015) 22(Suppl. 1) The Pan African Medical Journal 9; Philip Baba Adongo et al, ‘Cultural factors constraining the introduction of family planning among the Kassena-Nankana of Northern Ghana’ (1997) 45(12) Social Science & Medicine 1789-1804. [10] Trevor Hastie, Robert Tibshirani, and Jerome Friedman, The Elements of Statistical Learning: Data Mining, Inference, and Prediction (2nd edn, Springer 2001). [11] Andrew Gelman et al, Bayesian Data Analysis (Chapman and Hall/CRC 2004). [12] Jürgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis (Heinemann 1976). [13] ‘Personal and intellectual conflicts’ (Office of Research Integrity) accessed 10 April 2022. [14] What should be done strategically, morally, financially, in public health terms, etc. [15] Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (University of Chicago Press 1962). [16] Donna Haraway, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (Duke University Press 2016). [17] Andrew Abbott, Chaos of Disciplines (University of Chicago Press 2001). [18] Gelman et al (n 11). [19] Alejandro Caparrós and Michael Finus, ‘The Corona-Pandemic: A Game-Theoretic Perspective on Regional and Global Governance’ (2020) 76(4) Environ Resour Econ (Dordr) 913–927. [20] Margaret Lock, ‘Mutable environments and permeable human bodies’ Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (2018) 24(3) 449-474. [21] Caterina Marchionni and Samuli Reijula, ‘What is mechanistic evidence, and why do we need it for evidence-based policy?’ (2019) 73 Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 54-63. [22] Stephen Frenkel and David Weakliem, ‘Morale and Workplace Performance’ (2006) 33(3) Work and Occupations 335-361.

Introduction For the maverick French author Colette, writing about her childhood offered a chance to reflect on the past while keeping a firm grasp on the present. Though frequently avant-garde in their social philosophies, her memoir-adjacent novels also make evident a measured introspection. As she writes of her own attitudes towards novels and life in semi-autobiographical novel La Maison de Claudine: ‘Je ne sais quelle froideur littéraire, saine à tout prendre, me garda du délire romanesque…’.[1] This statement speaks to her work’s tension between the realist detachment of ‘froideur littéraire’ and the nineteenth-century romanticising visions of the pastoral evoked by ‘délire romanesque’. Indeed, Colette’s writing defied simple categorisation—particularly in regard to its subtly unconventional depictions of rural France. As a close reading of La Maison de Claudine (hereafter Maison) and the similarly retrospective Sido show, Colette’s writing on her pastoral origins is distinctive. She challenges ideas and values associated with the countryside in French realist novels and specifically pastoral novels, all while remaining distinct from the realist tradition. In this sense, though Colette’s writing has an unmistakable nostalgia, it is remarkable in its divergence from traditional romantic countryside depictions. This divergence is especially apparent in her writing’s feminist thematic focus and doubting, self-reflexive stylistic modernity; her books’ treatment of memory is self-referencing and avant-garde. She does not take the supposed ‘noble décor’ in which she grew up at face value.[2] In this essay, I argue that while Maison and Sido look back in time for inspiration, they are forward-looking and complex in their depictions of the countryside. Colette’s illustration of country living challenges stereotypes of the rural France of her childhood, which was often either romanticised for its traditionalism, or understood as being politically, economically, and socially backwards in a more pejorative sense. Colette’s work and characters, however, subvert this idea: the experiences she records and embellishes render the countryside a more modern and creative place than her urban French contemporaries believed it to be. Through devices such as humour, absurdism, and self-interrogation, Colette’s writing subverts more static depictions of nature reminiscent of the pastoral novel genre and its conservative origins in ‘la vie mondaine [,] la conception de l’honnête homme, [et les] mœurs rustiques’.[3] As explored by Eugen Weber in Peasants into Frenchmen, despite the heterogeneity of cultures across rural France, Parisians living in the mid-late nineteenth century—the time of Colette’s childhood—imagined peasants as ‘vulgar, hardly civilised, their nature meek but wild’.[4] A ‘fictional, tranquil countryside’ became the ‘pastoral vision of the rural world’ incorporated into primary school reading during the Third Republic, offering ‘conservative peasants’ as a counterpoint to France’s urban turbulence.[5] Though Colette was not a peasant, she lived among them; her books are notable for emphasising the heterogeneity and vivacity of the people populating her childhood. Diana Holmes argues Colette ‘played to the tension in French culture between the nostalgic idealisation of a rural past [and the] urban, the intellectual’.[6] Holmes also notes that French consciousness of the era associated the urban with ‘energy and adaptability’ and the rural with ‘conservatism and physicality’.[7] That Colette undermines this simplistic dichotomy, while also expressing a clear nostalgia for her choice recollections of pastoral France, renders her writing noteworthy. Several authors prior to Colette are remembered for their subversive pastoral writing: consider George Sand and La Petite Fadette or Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. Like much of Colette’s writing, these novels question patriarchal norms and complicate narratives based around the domestic. Still, Maison and Sido differ from the above works through Colette’s present-day self-insertion into her narratives and through her ongoing questioning of memoir writing, even as she records her own memories. Writing about her mother, for instance, Colette comments on how ‘J’aurais volontiers illustré ces pages d’un portrait photographique’, which entails her musing in-text on the impossibility of representing her mother on the page exactly as she was in life.[8] Moreover, Colette wrote about the nineteenth century largely while living in the twentieth, providing her with a retrospective view on how nineteenth-century ideas about rural France informed its literature. Her books blend fiction and memoir, rendering evident the subjectivity involved in remembering, and how recording memories is itself an act of creation as much as of re-creation. There exists tension in these books’ crafting and tone owing to how they interact with values from epochs half a century apart. Colette was born in 1873 and, at the time of her writing, had seen France grow more urban and industrialised, had moved from countryside to city, and had lived through the First World War.[9] She had also experienced an evolution of French social values running parallel to France’s growing modernisation and changing social order, especially in relation to gender and sexual freedoms.[10] This context means Maison and Sido hold a distinctive position in relation to France’s literary tradition. Their depictions of the countryside are retrospective and nostalgic, and are also a response to the literature with which Colette grew up: her house was filled with books spanning early nineteenth-century romanticism as well as the realism and naturalism that emerged partly in reaction to romanticism’s dominance.[11] Colette consequently became aware of conflicting schools of literary thought at an early age—or so she claims in ‘Ma mère et les livres’, a vignette from Maison highlighting these tensions that ran across the literary and real alike. In the vignette, Colette’s childhood preference for fairy tales is contrasted with the graphic naturalism of Émile Zola, in whose work Colette ‘ne reconnu[t] rien de [sa] tranquille compétence de jeune fille des champs’.[12] Reading Zola causes her to faint and leaves her ‘pâle et chagrine’ upon awakening.[13] Coupled with Colette’s mother’s dismissive comment on Zola’s depiction of childbirth, declaring it ‘beaucoup plus beau dans la réalité’, Colette questioned the authority of naturalist literature’s vision—and the realism of realism—as well as male writers’ abilities to write women convincingly.[14] In examining the feminism, humour, self-reflexivity, and unconventionality present in Maison and Sido, this essay analyses key preoccupations and motifs present in both texts: how different physical spaces in the countryside are depicted; the presence or lack thereof of backwardness in rural communities, whether political or social; and the role nostalgia and memory play in shaping these books’ ideas. Through such analysis, I argue for a reappraisal of Colette’s retrospective pastoral writing as being notably modern and subversive within a pastoral literary tradition that has historically depicted the rural world as a ‘picture of peasant utopia,…characterised by wisdom, balance and a purity of sentiments’.[15] Physical Spaces in the Countryside At first glance, Maison and Sido might appear conventional in their enshrinement of the ‘charme agreste’ that a grown Colette associates with her childhood.[16] Vignettes like ‘Printemps Passé’[17] are in some ways emblematic of Colette’s country recollections, populated by wise peasants, innocent young lovers, and plants whose beauty and growth are described as ‘divine’.[18] On closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that Colette’s writing modernises these ideas. From 1848 to 1914, a time of significant political change and industrialisation for France, primary constants were ongoing urbanisation and ‘a clearly articulated and powerful ideology of separate spheres for men and women’.[19] This ideology typically relegated women to the domestic, indoor sphere and men to the public one. In rural contexts, however, the lines between these spheres had the potential to be blurred, particularly in relation to gardens. A distinctive feature of Colette’s books is that she transposes women from houses into gardens. Rather than emphasise the house as a woman’s domain, Colette offers an alternative: gardens are unpoliced realms over which men hold little sway. They are associated almost entirely with women, even figuring as the locus of their social power. Sido, for instance, is shown to draw strength from her garden; she declares that to live in Paris, ‘il m’y faudrait un beau jardin’.[20] This comment makes evident not only the importance she places on the garden, but also its nature as a distinguishing element of country life. Gardens can ‘structure la diégèse’ of a story through their possibilities of enclosure, entrapment, or infringement of boundaries.[21] As such, gardens merit special focus in close readings. Gardens are symbolically important: according to ecocritical theory, for instance, gardens in literary culture can be ‘as much a moral as a physical space’[22] and can serve as a ‘school for virtue’,[23] representing female moral and sexual purity. Consequently, it makes sense to analyse how Colette portrays country gardens: her depictions offer insights into the morality or philosophy conveyed in her stories, as well as how she perceives the place of women with the rural society of her childhood. In terms of female and moral purity, Colette does not radically reshape gardens’ symbolism. Her garden-based interactions with her mother are largely safe and serene—a garden both offers physical protection from the ‘danger [et] solitude’ of the world beyond and acts as a place where children can encounter new ideas but remain safe from anything excessively threatening.[24] Sido gives her daughter books by Zola to read on the grass, for example—but she censors those she deems inappropriate. Nevertheless, Colette’s incorporation of humour into her depiction of gardens is significant. Through depicting the private, often mischievous lives of her female characters, she suggests that gardens have an exploratory capacity and are not solely a place in which a woman preserves her innocence. From Maison opening in a garden to both books’ rhapsodic descriptions of the plants and beasts dwelling there, Colette’s writing positions gardens as key features of country life. They are influential spaces that ‘donnaient le ton au village’.[25] They are also both exposed and private: bridges of sorts between public and domestic spheres. Indeed, in Colette’s work, gardens are figured as places of communication with the potential to transcend the domestic sphere’s insularity. When Colette writes ‘Nos jardins se disaient tout’, she is referencing neighbours’ tendencies to talk over fences as well as how the state of a garden can indicate the wellbeing of a house’s inhabitants.[26] This notion that gardens can indicate the wellbeing of their caretakers is evidenced by the passage noting that Sido’s garden is tended less once misfortunes strike the family.[27] In this sense, gardens in Colette’s books are important socially, existing porously on the edge of the domestic and the public and thus offering an alternative to the rigid, gendered separation of spheres described by Holmes. They can also serve as a gauge of what is happening inside the house and consequently makes them especially valuable for anyone otherwise unable to communicate violence they may be experiencing behind closed doors. Gardens align with communication; houses, when threatening, with silence. Colette’s depiction of country gardens as specifically female spaces is significant. As noted by Jerry Aline Flieger, Sido epitomises this tendency in Colette’s work: she is ever standing in her garden and her very house is ‘recalled as “a garden and a circle of animals”’.[28] In her garden, she possesses ‘suzeraineté’.[29] She is also depicted as being in touch with nature, her powers ranging from ‘infaillibilité’ when predicting weather to an instinctual understanding of plants and animals.[30] As Sylvie Romanowski argues, this understanding comes not from any magical power, but rather ‘from her instincts, her intuitive participation in nature’.[31] Such qualities cement Sido’s natural place as being outdoors—a conclusion supported by Colette’s own observation that her mother’s ‘glorieux visage de jardin [est] beaucoup plus beau que son soucieux visage de maison’.[32] Colette’s emphasis on gardens as valuable women’s spaces is further demonstrated by her decision to depict men as being largely absent from them. When describing the network of gardens spread throughout her village, she places men ‘sur les seuils’, where they smoke and spit.[33] In this sense, she heightens gardens’ symbolism: they represent women’s domains as well as women’s bodies and autonomy. The norm implied is that men do not—and certainly should not—enter gardens without invitation. Colette also subverts notions of male power in the countryside through her juxtaposition of her father with Sido. Unlike his wife, Colette’s father is ill at ease in the countryside. He lacks her authority over animals—‘Jamais un chien ne lui a obéi’—and this causes him to feel ‘secrètement humilié’.[34] He lacks intuition, speaking of potentially meeting his children on the road while Sido correctly assumes they will have cut through the fields.[35] Where Sido is described as growing more alive each time she touches country earth, meanwhile, Colette writes that the same earth and countryside ‘éteignait mon père, qui s’y comporta en exilé’.[36] In her memory, he is forever ‘fixé’ in his ‘grand fauteuil de repos’, surrounded by books she sometimes perceives as being as dusty and irrelevant as he is.[37] This unfavourable contrast and disempowerment of the father—and man of the house—makes evident the importance of the garden in rural life, which occupies so much more of Colette’s memories than does her father’s study. This truth is epitomised when Colette writes about how she could paint from memory the garden—representative of her mother—but that her father’s face ‘reste indécise, intermittente’.[38] By associating women so strongly with motifs of gardens, nature, and life, Colette’s memories and writing leave little room for men and male authority. This omission is a distinctly modern lens through which to depict her childhood, especially given men’s outsized social and economic power in France during her upbringing. Colette’s emphasis on gardens and women in the countryside reveals that at least in her experience of rural France, power was not always distributed along the gendered lines stressed by other chroniclers of the era. This reality is also evident in how she depicts the relationship between backwardness, freedom, and restraint in the countryside, as the following section explores. Backwardness and subversion While many vignettes in Maison and Sido linger on idyllic natural landscapes and the archetypal peasant characters inhabiting them, the books are noteworthy in how they humanise these landscapes and figures. This humanisation is particularly evident in Colette’s description of nature’s oddities, human mischievousness, and the books’ tension between freedom and restraint. Nature in nineteenth-century French literature was often idealised. This tendency emerged in reaction to France’s rapid modernisation following the Reformation: ‘utopian fantasies of nature…can be found from Romanticism onwards’.[39] Idyllic pastoral visions in fiction were popular particularly during the Third Republic, for they ‘served to inculcate the values of sobriety, thrift, diligence, and fraternity’ that were ‘vital to the republican order’.[40] Colette departs from convention when she depicts nature as sometimes being not only needlessly cruel, but also strange or bizarre. The small, meaningless cruelties and sadness present in finer details of the country idyll emerge in several of Colette’s tales involving animals and plants. For example, a pullet presumed lame from birth proves to be a casualty of one of Colette’s stray strands of hair, which the family eventually discovers ‘ligotait étroitement l’une de ses pattes et l’atrophiait’.[41] Colette’s brothers, figured as ‘deux sauvages’ whose adolescent growing pains ‘exige des holocaustes’, pass through a violent stage as a natural part of their growth.[42] They bully others and find sport in cruelties presented as inconsequential, such as pinning butterflies to corkboards or trapping fish.[43] Colette herself, her curiosity about plants leading to her knowingly digging up and killing several, is described by her own mother as a ‘petite meurtrière’.[44] Another vignette shows Colette’s dismay upon recognising that her dog is capable of being both ‘la plus douce des créatures’ and a ‘brute féroce’.[45] Through moments like these, Colette nuances her childhood’s bucolic setting, suggesting that the countryside does not wholly offer an escape from the violence more typically associated with urban France. That the duality of people’s and animals’ natures is presented as somewhat absurd—even darkly humorous—also complicates the existence of violence in Colette’s countryside. Her writing indicates that violence does not always exist in a moralistic or meaningful way. This suggestion in turn subverts the more conventional, fable-like style in which she recounts certain memories. Indeed, the absurdity and comedy of nature is an overlooked yet important theme in Colette’s books. Toutouque the dog, for example, behaves as a mother to kittens and other dogs’ puppies indiscriminately.[46] The vignette ‘Ma mère et les bêtes’[47] also focuses specifically on animals behaving in unconventional ways. These include a ‘chaîne de chattes s’allaitant l’une à l’autre’, a cat that eats strawberries, and a spider that drinks hot chocolate.[48] For Colette, nature is not always sensical or a vehicle for moralism and clear answers: sometimes it is simply peculiar or amusing. The mischievousness of certain characters in Colette’s books echoes the humour and absurdity their author identifies in the natural world. Reminiscent of Toutouque mothering kittens and puppies indiscriminately, Sido and her friend Adrienne ‘échangèrent un jour, par jeu, leurs nourissons’[49]—a playful act that Adrienne delights in and laughs about years later. This playfulness contradicts Romanowski’s reading of Sido as ‘irreverent perhaps, but only with regard to religious observances’.[50] Rather, while it is true that Sido is irreverent in church—she hides a collection of Corneille’s plays in her Bible—her willingness to push boundaries and play goes well beyond this example.[51] She is not a sedulous housewife; Colette emphasises her ‘humour, spontanéité’ and ‘malice’ that gets the better of her.[52] An entire vignette, ‘Le Rire’, is dedicated to her unpredictable, undignified, joyful laughter, even in the face of tragedy.[53] She also allows her children free rein, supporting them in their adventures. Colette’s characters thus reflect less the two-dimensional figures populating conventional allegorical literature, and rather values promoted during the French Third Republic, particularly in the context of children’s education. As historian Patricia Tilburg notes, from 1870, ‘an active and rich imagination was seen as a crucial acquisition of the new secular soul’.[54] This attitude in Colette’s novels is evidenced by the confidence with which, as a child, she climbs over the garden wall to freedom—with her mother’s blessing—knowing she can return ‘aux prodiges familiers’ when she chooses.[55] This link between the countryside and personal freedom is reflected in the passage where a young Colette walks alone into the woods, confident ‘ce pays mal pensant était sans dangers’.[56]Colette writes how on that deserted way, at that exact moment, ‘je prenais conscience de mon prix [et] d’un état de grâce’.[57] The fact that she records becoming self-aware as directly related to her being alone and in a half-wild country setting speaks to the value she places on solitude. In Colette’s novels, the countryside—and in particular the reduced sense of being monitored that such space can afford—offers individuals an opportunity to cultivate a sense of self. Colette’s depiction of the countryside is therefore one of freedom. This is notable given that rural, unpoliced spaces were and still are to some extent associated with threat, especially for women and children (‘safe spaces’, for example, are typically figured as being indoors). From an ecocritical perspective, too, the metaphor of ‘land-as-woman’—a metaphor supported in Colette’s work through Sido’s alignment with the natural world—lies ‘at the root of our aggressive and exploitative practices’, many of which are evident in classic literature.[58] In her passage emphasising self-discovery, Colette thus subverts associations of wilderness with threat, offering both a modern interpretation of such spaces and a narrative in which women are less frequently positioned as victims. Granted, the countryside in Maison and Sido is no feminist utopia. For all it offers some characters freedom, it also generates social and political restraints. Colette’s narratives ‘take place in a world that has a clear economic dimension’.[59] La petite Bouilloux, for example, is made aware of her exceptional looks—and this emphasis on her exceptionalism contributes to her gradual self-isolation as well as to her peers alienating her. Colette presents hers as a tragicomic moral tale: la petite Bouilloux ‘attendait, touchée d’une foi orgueilleuse’ that has her believe that, as a great beauty, her destiny lies beyond the village.[60] However, no handsome stranger arrives to spirit her away; she refuses marriage proposals and ultimately finds herself aged, alone, and embittered. Colette’s recount, for all its perspicacity regarding human nature, lacks sympathy for the woman’s situation. In another time or place, la petite Bouilloux could well have married into wealth. As it is, her personally tragedy is that of living in too small a village that she now disdains, with no great personal wealth or means of accessing a wider pool of suitors. As such, she is reminiscent of tragic figures like Emma Bovary: making poor decisions, but also a victim of romantic hopes combined with a too limited countryside reality. Colette’s father suffers similarly in the countryside. Politically ambitious and a ‘citadin’ at heart, his country existence is loving but constricting: the environment stifles him and he is described as ‘réduit à son village et à sa famille’ (my emphasis).[61] He is an ‘outsider’ in both the countryside and his family, ever ‘relegated to the sidelines’ in Colette’s memories and her retelling of them.[62] He never fulfils his dreams of becoming a writer, his unwritten works present in his imagination but intangible in reality, much like his phantom limb. This renders even more powerful the fact that Colette eventually takes her father’s name as her pen name. Through signing her works thus, she effectively conveys upon her father the closest realisation he will ever achieve of literary immortality. Nostalgia and memory For all Colette projected a self-assured persona in life, Maison and Sido reveal a self-conscious, even doubtful side to their author. The books are hyper-aware of their exploration of memory, and that memory can be subjective and incomplete and constantly evolving. As Colette explores in Maison, memory is fragile: she is aware that even in attempting to recreate memories with her own daughter, she risks the re-creation of that which is already ‘à demi évaporé’ appearing poor and void of enchantment.[63] Remembering and illustrating her childhood in the countryside thus becomes a fraught exercise, with nostalgia and interrogation of memory colouring the outcome. ‘Tout s’élance, et je demeure’, she reflects.[64] This sentiment encapsulates the wrench of recognising that memory can never be wholly re-created, or moments perfectly captured. This awareness renders much of her writing bittersweet. By the end of vignettes, for example, characters often appear frozen in place. Colette leaves her mother in the garden on multiple occasions, literally and well as figuratively, writing about imagining her still being ‘à cette même place’.[65] She also writes of her father being frozen in his library, where he resides in her memories ‘à jamais’, and laments not having known him better beyond this limited context.[66] Such moments make evident the limitations of Colette’s ability to conjure up the past. When she appears confident in her ability to recreate scenes, these are typically of a more static variety revolving around the set dressing of her memories. She writes of her childhood garden being before her eyes, for example, and of being able to evoke the wind, ‘si je le souhaite’.[67] However, other passages make painfully clear that she can only re-create what she already consciously remembers. When trying to recall the end of a conversation with her mother, for instance—one with great meaning for her adult self—she writes, dismayed, that ‘La suite de cet entretien manque à ma mémoire’.[68] While she can recreate the past’s scenery, those populating it can exist only within the scenes she remembers. Such is the limitation of memory and writing about it; for without the autonomy of their being alive, these characters and their depictions can never truly satisfy the adult writer. This paradox inherent to recounting the past forms one of the most intriguing aspects of Colette’s writing. As her descriptions of the countryside make clear, she is all too aware of her capacity—as well as that of her readers—to embellish the past. Her writing is modern in terms of her feminism and humour. Yet she appears comfortable exploiting the countryside as a subject matter to appeal to urban readers; her Claudine novels, after all, originated as a money-making venture.[69] She was likely influenced by pastoral literary conventions and their marketability, at least early in her career. However, the distance she creates between herself and her childhood through the insertion of her adult self into her books, reflecting on the scenes, makes clear her ultimate disbelief in her books’ capacity to capture memories in a way that feels truly alive. In this sense, the adult Colette and her depictions evoke above all her father’s slightly desperate, performative love for the countryside: it fills him with enthusiasm, ‘mais à la manière d’un noble décor’.[70] This phrase effectively emblematises a significant tension and subversive thread in Colette’s novels: that they acknowledge that nostalgia and appreciation of the pastoral can be performative, and that professing love for something which is itself a construct can be absurd or even embarrassing. The young Colette and her siblings, who feel genuinely moved by the countryside, grow only more taciturn as their father speaks—‘nous qui n’accordions déjà plus d’autre aveu, à notre culte bocager, que le silence’.[71] They are thus exactly like the characters populating Colette’s retellings of her memories: ultimately silent, because they cannot exist beyond the limits of what they have already said and done. Moreover, Colette is restricted in the knowledge that they do not—and cannot—authentically exist if she fictionalises or ventriloquises them into performance. They no longer have the potential to evolve or surprise of their own accord. Conclusion In her depiction of the countryside, Colette seeks to record memory, perhaps even in a bid to know its subjects better. She is driven by ‘le prurit de posséder les secrets d’un être à jamais dissous’, all the while aware that her retrospective perspective and then-modern values render her depictions of the past a form of commentary and of re-creation, rather than of unselfconscious representation.[72] Recording memories is, for her, an inherently bittersweet act owing to her awareness of its limitations. To some extent, her writing succeeds in its goal, enshrining people and places with a loving faithfulness that is, if not necessarily factually accurate, at least truthful in its depiction of adult Colette’s nostalgia. Her writing conveys a distinctly modern subtext regarding the freedom and feminine empowerment linked to certain country spaces. This also subverts the more common depiction of rural spaces in literature of the time as being peaceful, morally simple counterparts to the turbulence of urban France. Colette’s self-insertion in her books and commentary regarding the act of remembering also adds another layer to her depictions. Ultimately, Maison and Sido are strikingly modern for texts so dedicated to commemorating the past. Their self-referential tendencies make them enduringly relevant and thought-provoking for readers and memoirists, as do their humour and frequent impiety. They also offer insights into how constructing images is much like reconstructing memories: deeply selective and subjective. Colette was aware that the countryside she wrote into being was itself a sort of ideal and a fantasy, even when she used it to puncture traditional imagery and conservative ideas. Analysing her writing—which contains her own thoughts on its creation—can therefore not only engender greater appreciation of its modern aspects, but also encourage further reflection and investigation into image formation, in particular in the context of French culture. Rosalind Moran Rosalind Moran studied an MPhil in European, Latin American and Comparative Literatures and Cultures at the University of Cambridge and graduated with distinction in 2021. Outside of academia, she has worked as a government speechwriter and in a nonprofit media office. She is also an established freelance journalist with bylines in Reader’s Digest, Prospect Magazine, Meanjin Quarterly, and Kill Your Darlings, among others. The full title of this article is ‘Un noble décor’: Modernity and Depictions of the Countryside in Colette’s La Maison de Claudine and Sido. [1] Colette, La Maison de Claudine (first published 1922, Hachette 1961) 34. English translation: ‘I know not what literary coldness, healthy all things considered, kept me from romantic delirium…’. [2] Colette (n 7) 43. English translation: ‘noble decor’. [3] Maurice Magendie, Le roman français au XVIIe siècle (Slatkine Reprints 1970) 167. English translation: ‘the worldly life [,] the concept of the honest man, [and] rustic mores’. [4] Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914 (Stanford University Press 1976) 4. [5] Alan R H Baker, Fraternity Among the French Peasantry: Sociability and Voluntary Associations in the Loire Valley, 1815-1914 (Cambridge University Press 2004) 8. [6] Diana Holmes, French Women’s Writing 1848-1994 (The Athlone Press 1996) 133. [7] ibid 134. [8] Colette, Sido (first published 1930, Hachette 1961) 31. English translation: ‘I would gladly have illustrated these pages with a photographic portrait’. [9] Brooke Allen, ‘Colette: The Literary Marianne’ (2000) 53(2) The Hudson Review 193-207, 196. [10] Angelique Richardson and Chris Willis, The New Woman in Fiction and Fact Fin-de-Siècle Feminisms (Palgrave Macmillan 2002). [11] Colette (n 1) 31-37. [12] ibid 36. English translation: ‘recognised nothing of [her] quiet country girl competence’. [13] ibid 37. English translation: ‘pale and sad’. [14] ibid. English translation: ‘much more beautiful in reality’. [15] Baker (n 4) 8. [16] Colette (n 1) 151. English translation: ‘rustic charm’. [17] English translation: ‘Springtime of the Past’, or ‘Spring Past’. [18] Colette (n 1) 150. [19] Holmes (n 5) xvi. [20] Colette (n 7) 18. English translation: ‘I would need a beautiful garden’. [21] Simone Bernard-Griffiths and Marie-Cécile Levet, ‘George Sand sous le signe de Flore’ in Simone Bernard-Griffiths and Marie-Cécile Levet (eds), Fleurs et jardins dans l’œuvre de George Sand (Presses Universitaires Blaise Pascal 2004) 18. English translation: ‘structure the diegesis’. [22] Stephen Bending, ‘“Miserable Reflections on the Sorrows of My Life”: Letters, Loneliness, and Gardening in the 1760s’ (2006) 25(1) Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 33. [23] Judith W Page and Elise L Smith, Women, Literature, and the Domesticated Landscape (Cambridge University Press 2011) 17. [24] Colette (n 1) 23. [25] Colette (n 7) 10. English translation: ‘set the village’s tone’. [26] ibid 11. English translation: ‘Our gardens told each other everything’. [27] ibid 31. [28] Jerry Aline Flieger, Colette and the Fantom Subject of Autobiography (Cornell University Press 1992) 33. [29] Colette (n 7) 15. English translation: ‘suzerainty’. [30] ibid 17. English translation: ‘infallibility’. [31] Sylvie Romanowski, ‘A Typology of Women in Colette’s Novels’ in Erica Mendelson Eisinger and Mari Ward McCarthy (eds), Colette: The Woman, The Writer (The Pennsylvania State University Press 1981) 72. [32] Colette (n 7) 15. English translation: ‘glorious garden face [is] much more beautiful than her anxious house face’. [33] ibid 11. English translation: ‘on the thresholds’. [34] ibid 45. English translations: ‘Never had a dog obeyed him’; ‘secretly humiliated’. [35] ibid 44. [36] ibid 42. English translation: ‘extinguished my father, who behaved there as an exile’. [37] ibid 37. English translations: ‘fixed’ or ‘set’; ‘large rest chair’. [38] ibid. English translation: ‘remains undecided, intermittent’. [39] Tim Farrant, Introduction to Nineteenth-Century French Literature (Bloomsbury 2007) 135. [40] Baker (n 4) 8. [41] Colette (n 1) 65. English translation: ‘tied up one of its feet tightly and was atrophying it’. [42] Colette (n 7) 74. English translations ‘two savages’; ‘demand catastrophes’ or ‘demand disasters’. [43] ibid 71, 73. [44] ibid 20. English translation: ‘little murderess’. [45] ibid 90. English translations: ‘the gentlest of creatures’; ‘ferocious beast’. [46] Colette (n 1) 88-9. [47] English translation: ‘My mother and the beasts’. [48] Colette (n 1) 48-9. English translation: ‘chain of cats suckling one another’. [49] Colette (n 7) 29. English translation: ‘exchanged one day, as a game, their infants/nurselings’. [50] Romanowski (n 30) 72. [51] Colette (n 1) 106. [52] Colette (n 7) 37, 52. English translation: ‘humour, spontaneity’ and ‘malice’. [53] Colette (n 1) 113-5. English translation: ‘The Laugh’. [54] Patricia A Tilburg, Colette’s Republic: Work, Gender, and Popular Culture in France, 1870-1914 (Berghahn Books 2009) 61. [55] Colette (n 7) 15. English translation: ‘to the familiar/domestic wonders’. [56] ibid 13. English translation: ‘this ill-thinking country was without dangers’. [57] ibid 15. English translation: ‘I became aware of my price/value [and] of a state of grace’. [58] Cheryll Glotfelty, ‘Introduction’ in Harold Fromm and Cheryll Glotfelty (eds), The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology (The University of Georgia Press 1996) xxix. [59] Diana Holmes, Women Writers: Colette (Macmillan Education 1991) 66. [60] Colette (n 1) 84. English translation: ‘waited, touched by a proud faith’. [61] Colette (n 7) 41-2. English translations: ‘townsman’ or ‘city dweller’; ‘reduced to his village and to his family’. [62] Flieger (n 27) 67. [63] Colette (n 1) 151. English translation ‘half-evaporated’. [64] ibid. English translation: ‘Everything takes off, and I remain’. [65] Colette (n 7) 31. English translation: ‘at/in this same place’. [66] ibid 37. English translation: ‘forever’. [67] Colette (n 1) 51. English translation: ‘if I wish’ or ‘if I wish it’. [68] ibid 58. English translation: ‘The rest of this interview fails my memory’. [69] Françoise Mallet-Joris, ‘A Womanly Vocation’ in Erica Mendelson Eisinger and Mari Ward McCarthy (eds), Colette: The Woman, The Writer (The Pennsylvania State University Press 1981) 9. [70] Colette (n 7) 43. English translation: ‘but in the manner of a noble décor’. [71] ibid. English translation: ‘we who already granted no other admission, to our bocage cult, than silence’. [72] ibid 60. English translation: ‘the pruritus of possessing the secrets of a being forever dissolved’.

Had any of the players who competed for the inaugural tennis grand slam of 2022 in Melbourne been complete (i.e. sovereign, self-governing) individuals, they would have declared the ‘AO’ boycott before the tournament started.[1][2] Not only because of Djokovic, but also because of Renata Voráčová. Not only out of the camaraderie with the two fellow members of the traveling circus which professional tennis (along with all other professional ‘spectator’ sports) has become, courtesy of the ‘contemptible money economy’.[3] Nor because of supporting Djokovic’s undoubtedly hard and inevitably controversial choice not to get vaccinated. Not even because the famed AO had fallen easy prey to inconspicuous electioneering by the incumbent government. The principled individuals would have abandoned the tournament in light of what the cases of Djokovic and Voráčová inadvertently told us about what we have become. The boycott, however, was unthinkable. It could never happen, not in a million years. The inverse vision emphatically unfolded as part of a history adorned with the narratives of the ‘great success’, ‘uplifting finale’ and reignited ‘GOAT’ debates. To borrow the self-righteous assertion of Victorian Premier Dan Andrews, echoed by many, ‘the Australian Open was bigger than Djokovic, much bigger’.[4] No doubt they were right, although it is less clear whether any of them thought through the repercussions of their emotional and patriotic endorsement of the AO’s hyperbole. It is no secret that we have long since dispensed with the critical gift of unhurried and prolonged contemplation.[5] As a result, we tend to become too wrapped up in today’s multitude of political whirlwinds, whether big or small, brief or protracted. Nietzsche warned us about the perils of foregoing the ‘vita contemplativa’ and living, instead, ‘as if one always ‘might miss out on something’. When this happens, he argued, ‘hours in which honesty is permitted’ become rare, and even when they arrive, we have no energy left to for them.[6] Heeding Nietzsche’s warning, we might stop to ponder ‘why not?’. Why wouldn’t the boycott happen, why couldn’t it, should there have been one and, most importantly, what does the highly publicised scandal around Djokovic tell us about ourselves? Admittedly, it has always been a tall order to expect athletes to act as a barometer of collective conscience. It is, however, not without precedent. Sport often ends up caught in the crossfire of politics, which has in recent decades marred and brutalised the Olympic spirit, still vaguely synonymous with the few remaining pockets of uncommercialised athletic endeavour. Still, past athletes have, on occasion, shone an uncomfortable and uncompromising light on the perils of a situation the majority might passively sanction as ‘normal’. Jesse Owens did just that in 1936. Today, inside the fact that the boycott could never happen, hides a small but important secret. It binds us in a manner we prefer to pass over in silence even though we must speak about it. The secret is that we have firmly forgotten the original meaning of the word ‘idiot’. These days, when we casually throw around the term ‘Cov-idiot’, we refer to someone dangerously (almost offensively) weak in their mental and ethical faculties, unable to recognise the blindingly obvious benefits of getting vaccinated. In so doing, we habitually misuse the term or, to be more precise, we utilise its inverted meaning. An ‘idiot’ (from the Greek ἰδιώτης, or ‘idiotes’), however, is not at all a ‘fool’ or mentally incapacitated.[7] Neither Aristotle, nor Dostoyevsky, nor Nietzsche thought so.[8] The root adjective ἴδιος (‘idios’) denotes a state of affairs which is ‘not shared’ or an individual who, akin to a branch torn from the tree, is ‘disconnected’ from a larger whole, ie whose communitarian sensibility has been disabled. In other words, an ‘idiot’ is simply a ‘private person’.[9] That is, ‘idiot’ is a designation for an individual whose psychic cord—informing and enabling their sense of the ‘communal’ and the ‘collective’—has been irreparably severed, turning such fragmented human beings into ‘dividuums’. These dividuums are those who can be re-assembled as the meaningless (in and of themselves) and disposable (Marx would say ‘commoditised’) cogs of new socio-economic wholes—the vast religious, industrial, commercial, and ideological, forms of repressive machinery.[10] Much as in ancient Athens ‘idiot’ denoted a person positioned, by choice or fortune, outside of the polis (i.e. a form of disenfranchisement) and made weaker and more vulnerable on account of such externalisation, today the same term denotes the basis on which we are re-incorporated into society—i.e., as idiots.[11] Put slightly differently, we are incorporated into society as subjects who have internalised our own disenfranchisement from the community and from the communal, and therefore as inevitably of lesser value than individuals. Nietzsche would remind us that two other forms of reactive power, namely religion (meaning Christianity) and slave morality, operate according to exactly the same principle, the ‘reversal of the evaluating glance’, in terms of creating obsequious subjectivity.[12] Don’t get me wrong, today’s ‘private persons’ are invariably clever, educated, sophisticated and endowed with high morals. Yet, having been moulded into ‘idiots’, they have unwittingly become vulnerable and susceptible to being fooled and manipulated, without even realising this.[13] Private persons arranged into a ‘society’ serve as a powerful repellent of the few non-idiots from the new configuration of the polis.[14] The behaviour and the decision-making of idiots is different from that of individuals.[15] Idiots are powered and informed by a fundamentally different algorithm: one of constantly chasing after and maximising (but never fulfilling) the elusive personal marginal utility, in the form of the abstract notion of happiness, a ‘bubble’ that requires continual inflation. So much so, that ‘dividuums’ come to internalise and normalize their idiocy in much the same way, Nietzsche explains, as we have internalised the valuations of slave morality which inhibit individual autonomy and privilege the collective welfare of idiots as the ‘gold standard’ of good citizenship.[16] Tsitsipas, the Greek tennis ace, said that Djokovic made ‘the majority’ look like ‘fools’, and he was absolutely right.[17] ‘Fools’, however, in what sense? Did Tsitsipas inadvertently express the sentiment of the righteous idiotic majority that lacks an authentic collective identity which could extend beyond the mere slogans ‘expanded into a political theory’?[18] Echoing him, Martina Navratilova, a fellow idiot, suggested that Djokovic ‘should have taken one’ (i.e., the vaccine) ‘for the team’.[19] The embattled Australian government, justifying their decision to deport Djokovic after a protracted theatrical performance that all but revitalised the notion of the ‘kangaroo court’ and ended up dramatically invoking the ghosts of ‘civil unrest’, stated with unwavering confidence that they acted in the ‘public interest’.[20] The curious thing is that all of Navratilova, Tsitsipas and the Australian ministers genuinely believed that they spoke on behalf of a community: the tennis community, the Australian nation, humankind even. Using Covid as the new universal leveller, they believed they spoke on behalf of the ‘greater good’ in the firmly Benthamite/Millean sense. The kind of ‘good’ that extends beyond the notion of mechanical compliance with the rules. The kind of ‘good’ that should appeal to our ethical core notwithstanding that the chief functionality of the latter has long since been replaced with the plight of the idiot, powered by the totalising drive for equalisation intolerant of difference and thirsting for unanimity at any cost. Incidentally, Adam Smith thought that agents acting to further self-interest, without either ‘knowing it’ or ‘intending it’, helped to advance the ‘interest of society’.[21] One thing Smith overlooked and Nietzsche problematised was how the nature of collective interest may evolve following the reconfiguration of individuals into idiots and their subsequent re-incorporation into society. Nietzsche was weary that such ‘living for others in egoism’[22] would only ‘conceal knavery and harshness’[23] in the same way that ‘public opinions’ only serve to hide ‘private indolence’,[24] and by so doing aid in weaponizing the vindictive drives of the idiotic multitude.[25] Reinforcement of such ghostly yet militant collective identity, stitched together by exasperation and ressentiment, was on full display in the ‘no holds barred’ approach by the Aussie government in the pre-election fight for their idiots’ hearts and minds. Djokovic, in the wrong place at the wrong time, ended up being precisely the right person, offering a once in a lifetime gift to the politically fraught rhetoric of the ‘democracy of concepts [that] rules in every head—many together are master: a single concept that wanted to be master has crystallised in an ‘‘idee fixe”’.[26] Redolent though it may seem, even Smith would agree that ‘idiot’ does not necessarily designate someone of inferior intelligence.[27] Rather, it denotes someone who is (liable to be) manipulated on account of having been placed into and fully accepted the context (and the consequences) of acting only out of one’s—presumed autonomous and enlightened—self-interest, albeit one that is no longer informed by the authentic sense of the ‘communal’ or the ‘collective’ and, for that reason, unable to find fulfilment. The ‘collective’ now connotes an entirely abstract construct, hollow and lacking substance. It no longer allows for the possibility of ‘1+1 > 2’, where the ‘collective’ or ‘communal’ transcends the individual without trumping them. The present day ‘collective’ is a simple sum of private egoisms, each acting in their own self-interest. Crucially, however, each ‘private person’—a dividuum, or idiot—is a vastly diminished version of the ‘individual’, and the sum of ‘private persons’ invariably represents a far lesser magnitude than the fellowship of individuals. The ‘atomistic chaos’ of modern society lacks the ethos and material necessary for building the ‘new form of community’[28] (‘Gemeinschaft’) of truly ‘free individuals’,[29] which would be a ‘fellowship rather than the flock’.[30] As a result, Nietzsche argues, the collection of ‘atomistic individuals’[31] does not add up to a ‘collective individual’.[32] When we become incorporated as private persons, we trade individual autonomy for the collective welfare of idiots. Though we may be adorned with the labels of equality, freedom, and dignity, we effectively surrender the right to make principled choices. The latter, Nietzsche tells us, is not at all a ‘private matter’.[33] The assemblage of private persons is far weaker, more vulnerable, and politically impotent beyond the periodic hysterical outpourings of ressentiment, the ‘signs of the lowest and most absurd culture’.[34] The mass of ‘private persons’ will never win a war. It will never build anything worthwhile, let alone guarantee a stronger future. It will, however, happily submit itself to any coercion, just as long as this subjection is sublime enough and doesn’t hurt too much, allowing private persons to bask in the oblivious trinketry of the present moment.[35] Having undergone this transformative journey ‘at the freezing point of the will’,[36] private persons lackadaisically dwell in the ‘self-created world of opinions’,[37] no longer able to detect ‘the weight of the chains’.[38] Zarathustra forewarned that ‘even a prison’ of slave morality would ‘seem like bliss’ to the ‘restless people’, who can only ‘enjoy their new security’ in its inescapable nets.[39] The trouble is that any form of ‘mass idiocy’, by amplifying collective ‘moral effects’, invariably creates fertile ground for and becomes the conduit for the development of fascism and tyranny, which leverage ‘the power that lies in unity of popular sentiment, in the fact that everyone holds the same opinions’.[40] Nietzsche argues that the ‘private lazinesses’ hidden behind ‘popular sentiment’ come at an extremely high price: they turn the masses into the accomplices of the very crimes they think they help safeguard against.[41] The tyranny of words, idioms, ideas and opinions, once embraced by the multitude of idiots, soon becomes transformed into a real and potent weapon of reactive power: tyranny by the people, of the people and for the people.[42] Except that these people—akin to the Homeric ‘lotus eaters’—have lost, forgotten, or put to sleep their meaning as individuals.[43] They have traded their right to choose as autonomous individuals in exchange for the chimera of private citizenry, for the illusion of a social construct ‘in which everyone enjoys their own social ‘contract’.[44] They have effectively agreed to subordinate themselves to totalising oppressive drives, having squandered their ability and credibility to resist them. These idiots may occasionally develop a faint sense that they are being fooled and yet they are powerless ‘to not be fooled’, thus only exacerbating their predicament.[45] They have become the ‘fooled ones’, and we know well the sort of things the fooled can end up sanctioning and even eagerly participating in, believing all along that they are playing their part in bringing about the greater good.[46] Viewed in this context, Djokovic’s visa cancellation and his subsequent deportation were acts by the government acting ‘in the public interest’ of idiots: ensuring that idiots remain just as they are, and the bliss of idiocy remains unperturbed, for its veneer, concealing myriads of ‘subterranean demons and their knavery’, tends to be thin and fragile.[47] That is where the contradiction lies, inverting reality and distorting valuations. This, Nietzsche—following in Aristotle’s footsteps—suggests, is where we ought to start looking for answers. Many may argue that comparisons between the AO of 2022 and the Berlin Olympics of 1936 are misplaced. For the most part, I would agree. But in one important respect, namely that of the perilous complacency which has rendered us mere spectators in face of the pervasive rise of the repressive social control systems, the parallels could hardly be more merited. Make no mistake, ‘Let’s turn the world into one hospital or penitentiary’ (otherwise known as ‘build back better’) is a clever slogan. Unlike many others, it represents a realistic and achievable target.[48] It feeds on the energy we all, mostly unwittingly, lend it whilst we appear to be craving and beckoning it with nothing but the ‘good intentions’ of our hearts and minds. Alas, Nietzsche cautions that when individual sovereignty is made into a private affair ‘an abundance of dragon’s teeth are sown’ at the same time.[49] The more we demand that general security be guaranteed, ‘the more do new shoots of the ancient drives to domination assert themselves’.[50] We are no longer dealing with an isolated case of the ‘lunatics taking over the asylum’. Rather, the rapid and pervasive spread of idiotism resembles a situation in which the entire world, as though consumed by irredeemable guilt, has obsequiously agreed to place itself in the same woke asylum just so no idiot would any longer feel out of place. That is why the news of Djokovic’s deportation has caused many an idiot to experience an uplifting, if fleeting, sense of exaltation. Not being discriminating enough in what we wish for, not daring to be individuals (i.e. un-idiots and anti-idiots), we may sooner or later have our wish granted, if only to prove right either the gloomy prophet Silenus[51] or Plato, who warned that the penalty idiots end up paying is none other than to find themselves ruled by evil.[52] This is important because—and in this we can be certain—the machine will not stop harvesting our freedom in the name of ‘unanimity’, as long as we continue to submit ourselves to it ‘as material for heating’: Mankind mercilessly employs every individual as material for heating its great machines: but what then is the purpose of the machines if all individuals (that is to say mankind) are of no other use than as material for maintaining them? Machines that are an end in themselves - is that the umana commedia?[53] However, ‘precisely because we are able to visualize this prospect, we are perhaps in a position to prevent it from occurring’.[54] For this reason, we need a Jesse Owens to emerge from the cirque macabre enveloping us. Not as a solution, not as an Übermensch, but as a flicker of light and an instant of ‘counter-reckoning’ informing the sense of our ‘counter-action’—to ‘put a stop to the injury by putting a stop to the machine’.[55] Dmitri Safronov Dmitri Safronov holds a PhD in Political Economy from the University of Cambridge for research on ‘Nietzsche’s Political Economy’ (2020). Dmitri received an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics, and Honors BA in Philosophy and Politics from Trent University. Prior to matriculating at Cambridge, he spent over 20 years in the City of London, working for the leading global investment banking franchises. Dmitri’s profile and list of recent publications can be found on https://philpeople.org/profiles/dmitri-safronov. [1] This article quotes extensively from Nietzsche’s unpublished notes. These are assembled in the Nachlass and accessed from . Notes in the Nachlass are organized according to the year, number of the notebook, and number of the notebook entry, e.g. NF-1885(year): 2(notebook) [179] (note). [2] The author is triple vaccinated, lost his beloved aunt to the virus, does not hold anti-vax views, and is not a Djokovic fan. [3] Friedrich Nietzsche, Untimely Meditations (first published 1873-76, Cambridge University Press 1997) ‘Schopenhauer as Educator’ §§4-6. [4] Crystal Wu, ‘Dan Andrews says Australian Open is “much bigger than any one person” as Novak Djokovic faces wait over visa stoush’ (Sky News Australia, 16 January 2022) accessed 15 February 2022. [5] Cf. Nietzsche’s discussion in Nietzsche (n 3) ‘Schopenhauer as Educator’ §4; ‘David Strauss, the Confessor and the Writer’ §8. [6] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (first published 1882, Vintage Books 1974) §329. [7] Only in English and only by the late 14th-early 15th century does ‘idiot’ become a designation for the ‘mentally deficient’ (Oxford English Dictionary). [8] Cf. Aristotle, The Politics and The Constitution of Athens (Cambridge University Press 1996) 1253[a]. His two main claims are that man is by nature social (or political) and that ‘the whole must necessarily be prior to the part; since when the whole body is destroyed, foot or hand will not exist except in an equivocal sense…’. Dostoyevsky presents a masterful exploration of this subject in The Idiot (1868-69). Nietzsche echoes Aristotle’s logic, arguing that community is ‘a body on which no limb is allowed to be sick’ (NF-1888:15[1]) as well as exploring its permutations in modernity with recourse to Dostoyevsky’s psychological insights. Cf. also Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human (first published 1878-80, Cambridge University Press 1996) ‘The Wanderer and His Shadow’ §33; Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist (first published 1888) in The Portable Nietzsche (Walter Kaufmann ed, Penguin Classics 2008) §16. [9] Precisely this connotation of ‘idiot’ is used exclusively throughout the article. Should you find the usage of ‘idiot’ distressing, simply replace the offending term with the placating ‘private person’ as you feel necessary. However, it is recommended to take the cue from Nietzsche’s treatment of the similar semiotic challenge to modern sensibility as was posed by the discussion of the highly uncomfortable subject of ‘slavery’. Nietzsche, who was well aware that the modern world anxiously avoided the word ‘slave’ (cf. his 1871 essay ‘The Greek State’), nevertheless challenged our ability and willingness to do anything about the substance of ‘slavery’, when we cannot even handle the sound of the word (cf. NF-1871:10[1]). So, perhaps, see how much ‘offence’ you can take before boiling over with righteous indignation – one way or another, this exercise will tell you something about yourself. [10] Cf. Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human (first published 1878-80, Cambridge University Press 1996) §57; NF-1885:2[179]; NF-1887:10[17]. Cf. also Richard Mulgan, ‘Aristotle and the Value of Political Participation’ (1990) 18(2) Political Theory 195-215; Julian Young, Individual and Community in Nietzsche’s Philosophy (Cambridge University Press 2015) 5-10; Raymond Geuss, A World Without Why (Princeton University Press 2014) 231. [11] Cf. Nietzsche (n 10) §§472, 481, ‘The Wanderer and His Shadow’ §33. [12] Cf. Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality (first published 1887, Cambridge University Press 1994) I §10; NF-1881:11[73]; NF-1887:10[135]; NF-1888:14[9]. [13] Cf. NF-1886:5[71]; NF-1888:15[42]. Cf. also the definition of ‘idiot’ in Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary (Brockhaus-Efron 1890) accessed 15 February 2022. [14] Cf. NF-1881:11[185]; NF-1888:14[91]. [15] For the purposes of this discussion, we leave out the possibility highlighted by Aristotle that an ‘idiot’ could also be a ‘god’; cf. Aristotle (n 8) 1253a 27–29. Nietzsche, likely echoing Dostoyevsky, strongly disagreed with this Aristotelean possibility when discussing Jesus; cf. NF-1888:14[38]. Dostoyevsky makes this point in The Idiot through the image of Prince Myshkin. [16] Cf. Nietzsche (n 10) §45, ‘The Wanderer and His Shadow’ §276; Nietzsche (n 12) I §§4-5. Nietzsche also suggests that ‘wherever slave morality predominates, language shows a propensity for the words “good” and “stupid” to edge closer together’; Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (first published 1886, Cambridge University Press 2001) §260. [17] Harry Latham Coyle, ‘“It makes the majority look like fools” – Stefanos Tsitsipas slams Novak Djokovic for “playing by his own rules”’ (Eurosport, 13 January 2022) accessed 15 February 2022. [18] Friedrich Nietzsche, Nietzsche Contra Wagner (first published 1888) in The Portable Nietzsche (Walter Kaufmann ed, Penguin Classics 2008) §7. [19] Tom Parsons, ‘Novak Djokovic told to “take one for the team” as Martina Navratilova weighs in on debacle’ Daily Express (London, 10 January 2022) accessed 15 February 2022. [20] Ben Doherty, ‘Novak Djokovic visa: Australian minister Alex Hawke says risk of ‘civil unrest’ behind cancellation’ The Guardian (London, 15 January 2022) accessed 24 June 2022. [21] Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (first published 1759, Oxford University Press 1976) 183. [22] Nietzsche (n 10) §1. [23] ibid §443. [24] ibid §482. [25] Cf. ibid ‘The Wanderer and His Shadow’ §33; NF-1887:10[113]. [26] ibid ‘The Wanderer and His Shadow’ §230. [27] Cf. Smith (n 20) Ch. 3, Section 3, ‘Of Self-Command’. [28] NF-1883:16[50]. [29] NF-1880:8[61]. [30] NF-1882:4[48]. Cf. the excellent discussion on this point by Vanessa Lemm, Homo Natura (Edinburgh University Press 2020) 176-177. [31] NF-1882:4[83]. [32] Nietzsche (n 10) §94. [33] Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak (first published 1881, Cambridge University Press 1997) §9; Nietzsche (n 3) ‘Schopenhauer as Educator’ §§1-2. [34] NF-1888:14[38]. [35] Cf. Nietzsche’s discussion in Nietzsche (n 3) ‘Schopenhauer as Educator’ §4; Nietzsche (n 10) ‘The Wanderer and His Shadow’ §286; Nietzsche (n 12) ‘Preface’ §6; Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo (first published 1888) in Basic Writings of Nietzsche (Walter Kaufmann ed, Modern Library 2000) ‘Why I Am a Destiny’ §5. [36] Nietzsche (n 10) §349. [37] NF-1887:11[341]. [38] Nietzsche (n 10) ‘The Wanderer and His Shadow’ §10. [39] Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (first published 1883-5, Random House 1954) IV ‘The Shadow’. [40] Nietzsche (n 10) §472. [41] ibid §482. [42] Cf. Victor Klemperer, The Language of the Third Reich (first published 1947, Bloomsbury Academic 2013) 43-5. Cf. also Plato’s discussion on the creation of ‘the fiercest extremes of servitude’ from ‘the height of liberty’; Plato, The Republic (Penguin Books 1905) 563[a]-564[a]. [43] The image of the ‘Lotus eaters’ is used by Plato in his discussion of the ‘democratic man’ – i.e. private person lacking in willpower and judgement – in Plato (n 41) 561[e]-562[d]. Plato’s reference is to Book IX of Homer’s Odyssey. [44] NF-1888:14[197]. [45] NF-1886:5[71]. [46] Cf. Adam Smith on the ‘invisible hand’ – a euphemism for the magic wand that transforms individuals into idiots; Smith (n 20) 183. Nietzsche’s assertion that it is always ‘the invisible hands that torment and bend us the worst’ (Z: I, Tree) appears imminently more accurate; Nietzsche (n 38) I ‘The Tree on the Hill’. [47] Nietzsche (n 10) §111; NF-1887:10[113]. [48] Cf. the discussion in Nietzsche (n 6) §329; NF-1886:4[7]; NF-1888:14[182]. [49] Nietzsche (n 10) §472. [50] Nietzsche (n 10) ‘The Wanderer and His Shadow’ §30. [51] Cf. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy (first published 1872, Vintage Books 1967) §§3-4. Leonard writes beautifully about this ‘frightening wisdom’ of Silenus in Miriam Leonard, Tragic Modernities (Harvard University Press 2015). [52] Plato (n 41) 347c. [53] Nietzsche (n 10) §585. Consider the latest cynical attempt to shame Djokovic into vaccination by the UK’s Health Secretary, Mr. Sajid David, who suggested that it is only the millions of vaccinated spectators who make it possible for Djokovic to ‘get back to play the sport in front of them and earn millions again, it’s ok for him to have them take the vaccine, but the vaccine is not OK for him’ (author’s emphasis); Jennifer Meierhans, ‘Novak Djokovic is urged by the UK health secretary to reflect on his Covid jab refusal’ (BBC News, 15 February 2022) accessed 21 February 2022. [54] Nietzsche (n 10) §247. [55] ibid ‘The Wanderer and His Shadow’ §33.

Introduction Gamal Abdel Nasser savoured the moment: it is 26 July 1956 and he has just announced the nationalisation of the Suez Canal. The thousands packed into Alexandria’s Mohammed Ali Square are ecstatic.[1] This bold and highly contingent decision marked the beginning of the Suez Crisis, a complex mixture of war and diplomacy that tested the 1950s international system. Despite intense disagreement and violence, the crisis eventually reached a peaceful (if not uncontested) resolution. In this study, I will pursue a comparative analysis of international organisations (IOs) in order to understand their role in bringing the conflict to a close. Beginning with a narrative and historiographical background, the purpose of this section is to demonstrate how the introduction of new primary and secondary material can help us to understand this role and, consequently, enrich scholarship on the Suez Crisis. The crisis itself can be divided into three phases. First, after Egypt nationalised the Canal, a period of diplomatic deliberation ensued between Britain, France, the United States, and Egypt, which failed to bring about the international control of the Canal. Second, as planned in the clandestine Sèvres Protocol of 24 October 1956, an Israeli invasion of Egypt commenced on 29 October. Two days later an Anglo-French force intervened on the pretext of ‘police action’ to protect international shipping. Hostilities ended with a ceasefire on 6 November. Third, a withdrawal period began, which entailed intense diplomatic pressure on Britain, France, and Israel as well as the stationing of UN Peacekeepers (UNEF) in Egypt. UNEF supervised the withdrawal of troops, the clearing of the Canal, and the keeping of the peace on the Israeli-Egyptian border. British and French personnel evacuated by 22 December and the last Israeli troops left Egypt on 12 March 1957. Each of the crisis’ protagonists regarded their vital interests to be at stake as they entered the crisis. President Nasser felt compelled to nationalise the Canal in order to fund the Aswan High Dam project, the cornerstone of his plan for Egypt’s socioeconomic development. The West had withdrawn funding for the dam over fears of Soviet influence in Cairo; thus, by nationalising the canal, Nasser could both enrich Egypt and capture an important symbol of both the old imperialism and contemporary Western influence. Indeed, Britain had maintained a Protectorate over Egypt between 1882 and 1922 as well as a massive military base in the canal zone primarily to protect what a young Anthony Eden once called the ‘swing-door of the British empire’.[2] Regarding the 120-mile waterway as essential to communications, trade, and (increasingly) oil-supply, Britain and France had together owned most of the shares in the Canal Company.[3] The imperial powers could not accept that Nasser, who lambasted the French presence in Algeria and the British-led Baghdad Pact, would have control over a strategic interest that British leaders still regarded as their ‘jugular vein’.[4] Israel, constantly under threat from its numerous hostile neighbours and cross-border Fedayeen raids, was also unsettled by the fervently anti-Zionist Nasser. For these reasons, the botched British-French-Israeli operation had attempted to precipitate Nasser’s downfall and restore international control to the Canal.[5] Broadly speaking, three waves of writing on the Suez Crisis can be identified. The first of these was the publication of personal memoirs by contemporaries of the crisis, which, from the late 1980s, a second wave of scholars used alongside newly accessible archival material to structure a lively academic debate.[6] These diplomatic histories have understood the resolution of the Suez Crisis as a product of Britain and France’s inability to withstand American pressure to withdraw.[7] Since the turn of the century, however, historians have emphasised the importance of non-state actors in the course and resolution of the crisis.[8] International relations theory provides us with analytical tools that help us understand the role of IOs in history. I will draw inspiration from Abbott and Snidal’s argument that IOs affect agency through their ability, first, to centralise diplomatic engagement in a single, stable forum, and second, to remain independent.[9] I will also draw on Barnett and Finnemore’s idea that their ‘control over technical expertise and information’ gives them a special role in making international norms.[10] To understand IO agency, I will focus on the United Nations (UN), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Though other IOs—notably the World Bank—played a role, these three organisations embodied the three central loci of multilateralism during the crisis: diplomatic cooperation (UN), international monetary stability (IMF), and humanitarian aid (ICRC). While my comparative methodology certainly adds complexities, this type of analysis will, I hope, allow me to make new and insightful conclusions about both the collective role of IOs and their place in the wider international society approach. I will proceed as such: in the first chapter, I will investigate the aims of IOs. In the next chapter, I will outline their operations and assess the degree to which each organisation achieved its stated aims. Across both chapters, I will compare their aims, operations, and outcomes. In my final chapter, I will discuss how my research changes our understanding of the course and resolution of the Suez Crisis. I will explore an under-utilised body of archival material from the ICRC, IMF, and UN to address the questions I have outlined. The ICRC reported its aims and operations in the Revue Internationale de la Croix-Rouge (hereafter RICR) whereas the IMF and UN employed press releases. Meeting minutes and resolutions from the UN Security Council and General Assembly also elucidate the organisations’ activities. IMF press releases were infrequent and relatively uninformative, so I draw on the Executive Board Series, composed of internally circulated documents that appeared before Executive Board Meetings. Whereas the RICR and the UN documents I am using were immediately available to the public, much of the IMF material was strictly confidential. The RICR was mainly of interest to ICRC delegates, other humanitarian organisations, Red Cross societies, and the organisation’s sponsors; whereas UN Secretariat documents, meeting minutes, and resolutions were generally addressed to ‘the world’, which, perhaps vaguely, we can take to mean the international community.[11] Though I rely on self-reporting by officials from each organisation, which lends itself to the presentation of activities in a positive light, I approach the sources critically and with reference to other primary and secondary sources. In this way, it becomes possible to appreciate the agency of IOs in the history of the Suez Crisis. ‘Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained’: The Aims of International Organisations Three central consequences of the Allied victory in 1945 characterised the 1950s international order. First, a superpower confrontation between the American-led West and the Soviet-led East permeated all areas of geopolitics. The rapid proliferation of nuclear weapons made the prospect of this incipient Cold War turning hot particularly frightening. Second, the power and legitimacy of European imperialism was quickly falling away. Especially after the Bandung Conference (1955), anti-colonial movements and post-colonial states increasingly challenged European political, economic, and ideological domination. Third, several international organisations, including the UN and IMF, were set up after 1945 to preserve the postwar peace. Despite the intensifying East-West Cold War confrontation and North-South contestation over decolonisation, states continued to engage with multilateral institutions through the 1950s. Sequentially, I will locate the mandate of the ICRC, the IMF, and the UN in this international order before outlining their articulated aims at the Suez Crisis and concluding with a comparison of these aims.[12] The ICRC The ICRC was founded in 1863 ‘to protect and assist people affected by war’.[13] Though technically a private Swiss association, the ICRC was mandated by the 1949 Geneva Conventions—international treaties governing armed conflict—to inspect the treatment of civilians, prisoners of war, and the wounded.[14] Its role as the centrepiece between various national Red Cross and Crescent Societies and in the 1949 Geneva Conventions was justified with specific reference to the organisation’s neutrality.[15] Thus, its humanitarian role at Suez would be to implement the Geneva Conventions as a ‘specifically neutral and independent institution’.[16] By the time the Suez Crisis arrived, moreover, the ICRC badly needed to prove its worth: since 1945, it had not only lost major portions of its funding, but also the confidence of governments on both sides of the Iron Curtain.[17] Its failure to expose the Holocaust and the wholesale abuse of Soviet prisoners during the Second World War as well as its supposed anti-communist biases during wars in Korea and Indochina had especially harmed its standing in the East, though relations had improved somewhat since 1945.[18] Moving from the general to the particular, ICRC delegates had identified specific risks for the humanitarian management of conflict in the Middle East; an ICRC delegate who toured the region between January and May 1956 noted ‘l’absence de préparation pour le temps de guerre’.[19] Furthermore, in Autumn 1956, the ICRC would at the same time be stretched to address humanitarian issues arising from the Hungarian Revolution. As the first interstate war where the ICRC was tasked with implementing the untested 1949 Geneva Conventions, the Suez Conflict was expected to test the ICRC. The ICRC articulated specific aims prior to its involvement in the Suez Crisis that corresponded closely to its general mandate. On 2 November, it released the following radio broadcast: the ICRC ‘a prié les Gouvernements des pays impliqués dans le conflit…à assurer l'application des quatre Conventions de Genève’.[20] In addition, the ICRC announced that it was ‘prêt à assumer les tâches prévues pour lui par les Conventions de Genève’, which have been outlined.[21] In addition, the ICRC committed to organising the direct provision of aid.[22] Overall, an analysis of the ICRC’s mandate in international law and its press releases ahead of the Suez Crisis suggests that it aimed to mitigate the effects of war on civilians, prisoners of war, and the wounded by means of the neutral allocation of aid and by coordinating the efforts of various national societies. The IMF The IMF was set up in 1946 technically as part of the UN Economic and Social Council, but in effect operated as a fully independent organisation. During the 1940s, a consensus formed among economists that one key failure of the post-1919 world order had been the resort to manipulative currency practices in the 1930s, which had led to autarky, economic stagnation, and (indirectly) war.[23] The IMF was set up to prevent a regression to capital controls by resolving balance of payments issues through technical advice and temporary credit support.[24] Thus, it is possible to conceive of the IMF’s formally economic role as consciously related to the maintenance of the post-1945 peace; the June 1956 Annual Report’s reference to the organisation’s ‘obligations to the international society’ supports this view.[25] In practice, member states, who pooled resources in the Fund, could request withdrawals of ‘tranches’ of their ‘quota’ when problems arose. This process protected the stability of the Bretton Woods international currency system, which governed monetary exchange outside of the Soviet bloc. Before 1956, however, the Fund had not made any major interventions in the international monetary system. The most revealing feature of the IMF’s aims at the Suez Crisis is that they were never publicly announced. The absence of press releases related to the crisis was not surprising given the organisation’s functions as articulated in the Articles of Agreement. The Articles mandated the IMF ‘to promote international monetary cooperation’[26] and ‘to facilitate the expansion and balanced growth of international trade’.[27] Given the technical, jargon-laden focus on economics in the Articles, it is unsurprising that political neutrality was a tenet of the IMF.[28] Article 12 states that ‘the Managing Director and the staff of the Fund, in the discharge of their functions, shall owe their duty entirely to the Fund and to no other authority’.[29] Thus, the IMF presented itself as a technocratic institution with technocratic goals. There was, however, one private reference to the Fund’s aims with regard to the Suez Crisis at an Executive Board meeting in September 1956. When Egypt’s request to withdraw its gold tranche was accepted, the IMF acknowledged that the crisis might crop up in the press; thus, it was noted that ‘if the press raised any questions on [the dispute over the Canal], the management would reply that the transaction was of a routine nature and consistent with Fund rules and practice’.[30] It appears, then, that the IMF was committed to discharging its functions apolitically and intended to treat any incidental involvement in the crisis as routine. In sum, IMF documents suggest that the organisation sought to perform its normal function as guarantor of international monetary stability and, by consequence, to remain as neutral as possible. The UN The United Nations was established in 1945 as the world’s premier multilateral organ ‘to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’.[31] Though by 1956 its membership contained a large majority of the planet’s population, Cold War divisions within the Security Council and disputes about decolonisation in the General Assembly had circumscribed its grandiose collective security ambitions.[32] Especially after disputes between the West and East over the use of the UN mandate in Korea, many feared that the organisation would repeat the sorry demise of the League of Nations. Appointed in 1953, however, Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld had worked to win the trust of the Warsaw Pact countries and the Global South in order to develop collective security in the absence of Security Council consensus.[33] The UN Charter laid out shared principles that national representatives and UN officials were obliged by international law to serve. Article 1 defined the fundamental purpose of the UN: ‘to maintain international peace and security’.[34] Enshrining the ‘principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members’, the Charter commits signatories to only engage in self-defensive wars.[35] Though UN organs all worked under these shared principles, our assessment of the organisation’s aims must distinguish between the UN as diplomatic forum—the Security Council and the General Assembly—and the UN as international diplomat and civil servant—the Secretariat.[36] The two UN diplomatic forums never expressed unanimous ‘aims’ because of intense disagreement between member states, but did pass resolutions that indicated where consensus could be found. The one substantive resolution passed by the Security Council during the crisis, SCR/118, preceded the invasion of Egypt and formed part of Britain and France’s deceitful ‘agenda within an agenda’, which merely set the stage for invasion.[37] On 31 October, moreover, the Security Council deferred the crisis to the General Assembly, noting a ‘lack of unanimity of its permanent members’.[38] Thus, the Security Council professed collective aims either disingenuously or not at all. Invoking the ‘Uniting for Peace’ Resolution for the first time, an Emergency Special Session of the General Assembly set three goals: a unilateral ceasefire, the withdrawal of invading troops, and the restoration of free navigation to the Canal.[39] On 2 November, GAR 997 ‘[urged] as a matter of priority that all parties now involved in hostilities in the area agree to an immediate ceasefire’; it passed with an overwhelming majority, but not unanimously.[40] Even if the General Assembly was only a diplomatic organ, it could authorise the Secretariat to take action in the pursuit of its goals—the setting up of UNEF, for example.[41] Mandated by the General Assembly, Secretary-General Hammarksjöld’s aims would then be aligned with those of the Assembly as well as the Charter. Although Article 97 of the Charter describes the Secretary-General as ‘the chief administrative officer of the Organisation’, Dag Hammarskjöld expressed an intention to use his position to broker peace.[42] For example, on 13 October 1956, a Secretariat press release indicated a desire to facilitate ‘a just and peaceful solution to the Suez problem’.[43] In addition, Hammarskjöld personally emphasised his aspiration to ‘discretion and impartiality’ in his role.[44] In sum, the Secretariat aimed to restore peace with a special focus on remaining neutral. To conclude, the ICRC, the IMF, and the UN Secretariat expressed different specific aims, but shared a commitment to neutrality and the service of their core values. Interestingly, the ICRC, IMF, and UN presented humanitarianism, monetary stability, and peace as neutral, universal goals. This presentation of neutrality and universality fits nicely into the wider discourse of twentieth century internationalism, which is defined as ‘values which were supposed to be valid to all people at all times…everywhere’.[45] These commonalities, moreover, strengthen the case for considering IOs collectively in the wider question of the international society approach to the Suez Crisis. As the dispute over the Suez Canal entered its militarised phase, then, the ICRC, the IMF, and the UN Secretariat aimed to go about protecting those affected by war, ensuring monetary stability, and promoting peace as neutral parties. ‘Acting Neutral’: The Operations of International Organisations Now for the action: in this chapter, I will examine primary and secondary accounts of what IOs did after the beginning of hostilities on 29 October and outline the outcomes that had emerged by the end of the crisis the following Spring. By referring these outcomes back to the aims I described in the last chapter, it becomes apparent that IOs for the most part achieved their articulated goals: atrocities were, by and large, avoided, monetary stability maintained, and the status quo ante bello restored. By looking at the actions of each organisation sequentially and then comparatively, I will analyse the processes employed by IOs in the realisation of their aims. With this in hand, it will become possible to assess the collective contribution of IOs to the resolution of the Suez Crisis, which will be the focus of the next chapter. The ICRC Today, our popular memory of the Suez Crisis (if such a thing exists) tends to forget the extreme threat to human security that it precipitated. That threat was all too apparent to the ICRC, however. Accounts of the organisation’s intervention in this ‘short but intensive war’ show that: it effectively supervised the implementation of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, recording very few violations; it coordinated the allocation of its own aid supplies reserves alongside those of other national Red Cross and Crescent societies; and it maintained neutrality in the eyes of states during its activities.[46] These outcomes can be attributed to three core activities: diplomacy, information gathering, and coordination. Upon the outbreak of hostilities on 29 October, the ICRC’s first response was to push for the application of the Geneva Conventions. After the ceasefire came into effect on 6 November, however, the ICRC went about ensuring that civilians, the wounded, and prisoners of war received proper treatment and humanitarian aid; negotiating the repatriation of prisoners; and organising the departure of Jews fleeing persecution in Egypt.[47] The ICRC’s supervision and diplomacy ensured the near universal adherence to the new Geneva Conventions. On 2 November, it issued a radio broadcast reminding all parties in the conflict the contents of the Conventions.[48] One day prior, it had used its diplomatic positions to receive guarantees from Anthony Eden that Britain would adhere to the Conventions, even though they had not yet been ratified.[49] Similarly, given the ambiguous position of UNEF in international law, the ICRC worked to receive a guarantee from Dag Hammarskjöld on 4 December 1956 that the UNEF would ‘observe the principles and spirit’ of international humanitarian law if it had to use force.[50] Thus, the ICRC used its diplomatic position to ensure that all parties in the Suez conflict would in principle adhere to the Geneva Conventions. This diplomatic position allowed the ICRC to negotiate and supervise the reciprocal transfer of prisoners. By the time the ceasefire had come into effect, Israel held some 5600 Egyptian prisoners with France and Britain in possession of a further 400.[51] Conversely, Egypt captured one Frenchman, who died unavoidably soon after detainment, and four Israelis.[52] The ICRC was essential for organising the repatriation of 48 seriously injured Egyptians held in Israel on 18 November; flights between Egypt and Israel had been banned since 1949 and no diplomatic relations existed between the two countries.[53] Using its position as Israel’s protecting power to negotiate with Egypt, it had organised the final repatriation of all prisoners by 5 February.[54] Especially in view of the difficulties faced repatriating prisoners after the 1947-9 Palestine War, the ICRC’s formally neutral diplomatic position appears to have facilitated dialogue between Egypt and Israel that would otherwise have been impossible.[55] Except with regard to the maltreatment of Israeli prisoners in Egypt, ICRC accounts suggest that the organisation’s formal neutrality and the special ability of its personnel to gather information allowed it to minimise violations of the Conventions. Newly established delegations in Alexandria, Port Said, and Tel Aviv secured permission to inspect prison facilities and the administration of occupied zones.[56] In the occupied Sinai, Dr. Louis-Alexis Gailland spoke to prisoners in Israeli, British, and French captivity, securing the release of those imprisoned unjustly.[57] On the other side of the ceasefire line, however, Egypt initially prevented the inspection of Israeli prisoners. Indeed, it was reported on 27 January that Israelis had been beaten and even tortured in captivity.[58] After further investigation, the ICRC received the almost certainly disingenuous reply from Egypt that the Israelis had fought amongst themselves.[59] Thus, the ICRC ultimately depended on the cooperation of states. The maltreatment of Israeli prisoners suggests that we cannot entirely accept the assertion in the March 1957 Revue Internationale that ‘pendant leur captivité tous les prisonniers ont été assistés, en Israël et en Égypte’.[60] Still, there is nothing to suggest that this was not mostly the case. In sum, even if it could not prevent any violations of the Geneva Conventions from occurring, it is possible for the most part to accept the ICRC’s assertion that the Suez Crisis ‘demeure très caractéristique de l’accomplissement des tâches du [CICR] dans le cadre des Conventions de Genève’.[61] The attitude of the belligerents to the ICRC suggests that its formal neutrality made it more trustworthy than various national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, which helped it to both gather information on humanitarian conditions and allocate humanitarian aid. From the start of the conflict, ‘un fonds spécial de secours aux victimes des événements est immédiatement ouvert;’ the ICRC was better placed than national Red Cross societies to allocate this aid.[62] For example, on 10 November, the Egyptian Red Crescent tried to gain access to the heavily damaged Port Said; only one ambulance of supplies was permitted entry, and only for one day.[63] Access was again denied on 26 November.[64] In contrast, ICRC delegate Maurice Thudichum was able to enter Port Said on 12 November and negotiate the passage of a large freight train of cargo across the ceasefire lines on 16 November.[65] It is clear that Britain’s understanding that the ICRC was neutral was a condition for this; on 10 November, the British army had told Egyptian Red Crescent personnel that groups entering Port Said ‘should consist of neutral and not (repeat not) Egyptian personnel’.[66] Consequently, by the time the Egyptian Red Crescent was given full access to Port Said on 12 December, the ICRC had long been running regular convoys of aid.[67] Egypt also perceived the ICRC to be neutral; despite great suspicion of European encroachment in Egypt, the organisation’s European delegates were given free reign to inspect Port Said after the British-French withdrawal.[68] Thus, because ‘‘neutrality’ was…achieved more easily by the ICRC than by the various national societies’, the ICRC provided aid where other actors could not.[69] The ICRC’s position as an international aid agency allowed it to coordinate national Red Cross societies and to convert the international community’s solidarity with Egypt into concrete aid commitments. By February 1957, forty-seven national Red Cross societies had answered the ICRC’s call three months earlier for aid to be sent to Egypt.[70] For example, Denmark and Italy donated planes for the ICRC to transport the wounded out of Israel. ICRC inspectors in occupied areas were able to distribute vaccines and other supplies, including juice, games, and cigarettes.[71] According to reports from ICRC delegates, the organisation worked ‘en liaison étroite’ with other aid agencies such as the UN Relief and Works Agency.[72] Thus, the ICRC for the most part achieved the goals it set for itself during the Suez Crisis. With the notable exception of the treatment of Egyptian prisoners, its sources indicate that it was able to inspect the treatment of prisoners and civilians, ensuring the adherence of the combatants to the Geneva Conventions in the process. Through information gathering and diplomacy, it was also able to delegate aid in ways that were not available to other organisations. Through this examination of the ICRC’s functions, moreover, an interesting observation emerges: its neutrality in the eyes of states gave it special access. The construction of neutrality, it appears, was essential to the ICRC’s achievement of its goals. The IMF To understand the IMF’s role in the resolution of the Suez Crisis, I will assess how far the IMF maintained international monetary stability as well as its neutrality. I will pursue my investigation by evaluating the extent to which the Fund approved loans according to its own rules during the crisis. With this in mind, I will assert that the Fund prevented a calamitous rupture in the international monetary system and maintained a significant though not unqualified degree of neutrality by allocating aid according to the rules of the international monetary regime and producing technical economic information. Viewing the conflict as just another economic factor on its balance sheet, the organisation avoided involving itself in politics. Even if the United States did use its disproportionate voting power in the IMF as leverage over Britain, I will seek to understand the operations of the IMF on its own terms. Overall, I find that when confronted with questions relating to the crisis, the Fund worked almost entirely according to ‘business as usual’. During the diplomatic phase of the Suez Crisis, the archives do not suggest that IMF officials were much preoccupied with the dispute, even when dealing with requests from its main protagonists. On 21 September, the Egyptian government made a request to draw its gold tranche. Noting that ‘in recent months the payments position has been complicated by international developments’, the loan was rapidly approved on 22 September as a normal response to a short-term trade imbalance.[73] In any case, it was rare for a gold tranche withdrawal to be denied. Business as usual with Egypt. It took longer for IMF staff to approve a French stand-by arrangement for its gold and first credit tranche, which it requested on 11 October. Delays arose because of concerns over the Franc’s par value and the size of the withdrawal, but not over France’s involvement in the Suez Crisis.[74] Staff were of the opinion that France’s massive current account losses were a result of ‘temporary factors’, including the import demands of the booming postwar economy, a bad harvest in 1956, and the intensifying war in French Algeria.[75] Indeed, Suez was not mentioned in any of the multiple staff reports which were considered at the 17 October Executive General Meeting where the stand-by agreement was approved.[76] The 18 October press release announcing the arrangement did not mention any political concerns.[77] Staff analysis recommended its approval on the basis that the balance of payments issue would be temporary. France was able to withdraw funds allocated by the stand-by arrangement as normal between February and June 1957. Business as usual with France. When war broke out in the Middle East the IMF moved more cautiously, albeit still according to its normal rules. Tranche withdrawals were designed to ease short-term pressures on balance of payments, rather than to support ‘large and sustained’ outflows of capital—such as a protracted war.[78] The continued presence of Israeli troops in Egypt complicated its request for a first credit tranche withdrawal on 25 January 1957; staff analysis noted that ‘the full impact of [the Suez] crisis on the Egyptian economy cannot yet be assessed’.[79] Still, on 4 February the withdrawal was approved on the basis that difficulties had arisen from the loss of dues from the closed Canal and sanctions imposed by Britain and the US the previous summer.[80] Business is more complicated, but again business as usual with Egypt. As a result of the Suez Crisis, discussions between Israel and the Fund on increasing its quota and setting a par value for the Israeli pound were stalled; the matter was removed from the 31 October Executive Board Meeting agenda because of the invasion of Egypt.[81] However, despite the continued presence of Israeli troops in Egypt, consultations continued from December to February, culminating in a long report in February 1957 on the economic situation in Israel; the report steered clear from sensitive policy matters, referencing the ‘international situation’ only once.[82] Israel’s quota was increased on 27 February to $7.5 million and on 6 March the Fund recommended that Israel’s par value be set at 1.80 Israeli Pounds to the dollar all while boots were still on the ground in Egypt.[83] Despite Israel’s recent transgressions in Egypt, its request on 15 May 1957 for a gold and credit tranche was also dealt with largely apolitically. The staff consultation document presented to the Executive Board, explained Israel’s large trade deficit with reference to increased immigration from Poland and Hungary; the words immigration and immigrant are together mentioned 11 times, whereas Suez is only (indirectly) referenced once.[84] Thus, the loan was approved, again for economic reasons. Business was more complicated and temporarily delayed, but almost as usual with Israel. No precedent existed in the Fund’s history for resolving the problem brought by Britain in December 1956. The crisis of confidence in Britain precipitated by the Suez dispute created a massive speculative pressure on the sterling that almost forced the British government to devalue and/or impose capital controls. Bank of England director C.F. Cobbold had already been warned in October by Commonwealth central bankers that ‘a further devaluation of sterling would mean the end of the sterling area‘.[85] Not only was the sterling area considered to be a binding force in the Empire and the Commonwealth, it also ensured to a large degree the stability of the Bretton Woods exchange system, financing over 50% of global transactions.[86] Thus, the importance of ‘the continued existence of the sterling area to the British government in 1956 cannot be over-emphasized’.[87] Naturally, Britain began seriously considering an IMF withdrawal request in November alongside relief funds from EXIM and the delay of lend-lease repayments due to the US and Canada. When Chancellor of the Exchequer Macmillan informed Cabinet on 6 November that the US would not allocate this aid so long as Britain maintained operations in Egypt, a sense of crisis grew.[88] Indeed, the IMF’s weighted voting system gave the United States disproportionate influence over the allocation of funds. As a consequence, Diane Kunz argues that in this position Britain had ‘complete and utter dependence’ on US support for its continued presence in Suez because to continue Britain needed money that only America could release from the IMF.[89] Diplomatic histories have conclusively demonstrated that the US used its leverage in the IMF, alongside other bargaining chips, to force a British withdrawal from Port Said by threatening to block a tranche release.[90] It does not follow, however, that the IMF failed to approach the British loan request neutrally when it arrived or, indeed, that the Fund ever contravened its rules. In fact, if we look at the way that the IMF handled Britain’s request—rather than the way that the US threatened to handle the IMF—it becomes clear that its decision making conformed to the normal technical approach. On 7 December, British Director Lord Harcourt made a request for the release of Britain’s gold and first credit tranches ($561.47 million) with its remaining quota available on standby ($738.53 million) for reasons, in his own words, entirely ‘consistent with the provisions of the Fund Agreement’.[91] It would be the technical recommendations of IMF staff and not American geopolitical interests, it appears, that decided the approval of this massive tranche release. The Executive Board was presented with a background material document that noted the ‘improvement in the situation, both internally and externally’ of Britain’s 1955 trade deficit into a surplus in 1956.[92] Staff analysis concluded that ‘reserves were influenced not only by the United Kingdom’s trading position but also by its role as banker and by the international use of sterling’.[93] During the Executive Board Meeting itself, executive director F.A. Southard remarked that ‘if the Fund did not act to bolster such a key currency as sterling…all members would regret it and…the consequences would be serious’[94] because of its status as reserve currency. The Fund granted Britain support because it recognised that the sterling’s problems resulted from a speculative attack rather than from fundamental problems with the British economy. It applauded Britain, furthermore, for avoiding the introduction of trade controls.[95] Case by case, IMF internal documents suggest that the organisation operated according to its own rules during the Suez Crisis. Even if Executive Board documents were available to top officials in member countries’ central banks, which incentivises the presentation of impartiality, I find that the willingness of the IMF to deal with Israel while it sustained troops in Egypt suggests that it was not so extensively influenced by the US, who at the same time vehemently sought an Israeli withdrawal in the UN. Still, Kunz presents the IMF as just another instrument of American economic leverage.[96] Indeed, she goes as far as to describe Britain as an American ‘client state’ because of its reliance on IMF aid.[97] However, Kunz’s view likely stems from her reliance on British-American diplomatic correspondence; in ‘The Economic Diplomacy of the Suez Crisis’, which is nearly 400 pages long, she references IMF sources just once.[98] Relating IMF documents to secondary material, in contrast, demonstrates that it is inappropriate to see the Fund merely as another weapon in America’s economic arsenal. Thus, we must circumscribe Kunz’s argument. Instead, ‘the IMF was able to act upon [loan requests] without becoming embroiled in the crisis’.[99] Turning to outcomes, it appears that the technical information and neutral decision making affected by the Fund mitigated the short to mid-term monetary problems associated with the Suez Crisis. The 1957 annual report ‘found it encouraging that difficult internal adjustments had been made with considerable success, and that it had proved possible, with the assistance of the Fund, to avoid a reintroduction of the restrictive practices [in Europe]’.[100] Indeed, after the announcement of the IMF package, staff analysis found that ‘speculative pressures [on the sterling] virtually ceased’.[101] Despite the role of direct US aid in reviving the sterling, Boughton argues that ‘a much larger multilateral package would have to be assembled to end the crisis, and the IMF was the institution that was best placed to do so’.[102] The pound retained its exchange rate with the dollar until 1967. In February, an Executive Director noted that ‘the current balance of payments was better than one would have thought possible some months ago’.[103] Thus, the IMF maintained the stability of the international monetary system during the Suez Crisis. Even if its decisions affected the diplomacy of the crisis, it has been shown that they were by and large formulated according to a neutral application of the Articles of Agreement. Like the ICRC, then, the IMF could perform its functions in no small part because its neutrality was credible. Its unprecedented achievement in keeping countries financially buoyant and open for trade in this time of crisis is captured in the Business Week headline of 30 March 1957: ‘IMF wins over the sceptics’.[104] It had put its technical powers to effective use in a testing time for the international monetary system. The UN Though the UN had been involved in the first, diplomatic phase of the Suez Crisis, its operations began in earnest after Israeli tanks rolled into the Sinai Peninsula.[105] With the military conflict in motion, the organisation’s aim became the restoration of peace with a full withdrawal by all the belligerents. In fact, a ceasefire was declared within a fortnight of the Israeli invasion and the full withdrawal of foreign troops from Egypt completed inside six months; however, it is necessary to draw direct causal links between the UN’s intervention in the conflict and the outbreak of peace. The UN affected four key processes: it set international norms and directly encouraged states to follow them; it solved technical problems; it shaped interstate diplomacy by creating a neutral forum for debate; and it created the world’s first peacekeeping force, which acted as a physical extension of its diplomacy. The UN acted as the primary shaper of norms during the Suez Crisis, a position that proceeded from the ‘strength of its [near] universal membership’ and its status as the premier diplomatic organ in world politics.[106] Crucially, the UN Charter commanded what Weiss calls ‘international legitimacy’.[107] Security Council and General Assembly Resolutions were the main vehicle by which the UN made normative pronouncements over the crisis. From the outset of the crisis, belligerents attempted to frame their actions in terms of the normative mandate of these resolutions. Indeed, even though Britain and France ended up completely transgressing the principles of SCR/118 both countries presented their invasion as a ‘police action’ to protect international shipping—i.e. in terms broadly consistent with the Charter.[108] Unfortunately for Anthony Eden and Guy Mollet, however, deliberation at the UN affirmed the opposition of most states to the invasion. The First Emergency Special Session of the General Assembly passed Resolution 997 on 2 November, which called for a ceasefire, withdrawal, and clearance of the Canal. These demands were repeated in motions passed on 4, 7, and 24 November.[109] After the British-French withdrawal, Israel was pressed further through motions on 19 January and 2 February.[110] Though some countries (notably Australia), voiced their support for the British-French ‘police action’, the General Assembly, overall, conclusively condemned the tripartite aggression with large majorities in the General Assembly.[111] On 3 November, the Egyptian representative rebuked Britain and France’s ‘false pretext of separating the Egyptian and Israel armies until a solution has been found to the Suez Canal question’.[112] In an address on 7 November, the delegate for Ceylon noted that, ‘the Assembly, by its resolution [GAR 997], rejected in unmistakable terms the explanation that their [Britain and France’s] action was a ‘police action’; it was an invasion, a military operation conducted against Egypt. In those circumstances, they have no legal or moral right to remain there’.[113] Thus, the role of the African-Asian bloc in admonishing the imperial powers is especially important.[114] Britain and France had attempted to prevent this by framing their invasion as a ‘police action’, which demonstrates a key diplomatic dimension of the Suez Crisis: UN norms mattered. The diplomatic operations of the Secretariat were also crucial in the UN’s pursuit of peace, facilitating consensus-building deliberation on the General Assembly Floor as well as behind the scenes. On 29 October, Secretary-General Hammarskjöld convened private meetings with American, British, French, and Soviet diplomats to discuss the situation.[115] Working with Canadian Foreign Minister and committed UN advocate Lester Pearson, he led backroom discussions from 2 November that helped to distil the principles of UNEF, which would replace British-French ‘police action’.[116] While it was important that the superpowers supported UNEF, the independent diplomatic action of the Secretariat was essential. Between 16 and 18 November, Hammarskjöld opened talks in Cairo to secure Nasser’s approval, spending seven hours alone on 17 November to sway his doubts about the inclusion of Canadian forces—whose head of state was the Queen of England—in the operation.[117] Nasser’s acceptance of foreign UNEF troops on Egyptian land depended on his trust in Hammarskjöld. To understand the agency of the Secretariat, we also have to appreciate its use of what I call ‘hard diplomacy’—diplomatic process that bolsters verbal negotiations with action on the ground. The Secretariat’s status as a neutral, international body allowed it to provide the technical aid needed to clear the several ships scuttled in the Suez Canal at the start of the invasion. Whereas Britain and France argued that their own engineers would be needed, Hammarksjöld organised an alternative pool of technical expertise, which was accepted because it was not deemed to undermine Egypt’s sovereignty.[118] As a result, France and Britain lost an important justification for their continued presence in Egypt. The United Nations began work in mid-December and the Canal was in full working order by 10 April 1957. The UN’s provision of neutral, technical aid, then, both resolved a material problem created by the Suez Canal—the blocking of a major seaway—and increased diplomatic pressure on Britain and France to withdraw. A more impressive example of the UN’s ‘hard diplomacy’, however, is the formation of UNEF. By establishing a peacekeeping force that was neutral and ‘fully independent of the policies of any one nation’, the security of the Suez Canal could be assured without undermining Egyptian sovereignty.[119] With the first UNEF troops entering Egypt on 15 November to supervise the Egyptian-Israeli truce, the basis for British-French occupation began to evaporate. Indeed, the forceful appeals of GAR 1121 for the three invading countries to withdraw emphasised the presence of UNEF.[120] Though only mandated to act in self-defence, these forces were a physical embodiment of the UN’s mandate for peace as Dag Hammarskjöld emphasised in a radio address to his soldiers: ‘You are the frontline of a moral force which extends around the world…Your success can have profound effect for good‘.[121] In sum, the UN was an active participant in the restoration of peace in the Middle East. First, the UN set norms that carried real weight due to the organisation’s near universal membership and commitment to high ideals. Second, the UN’s body of international civil servants in the Secretariat facilitated diplomatic engagement between states, especially through the personal work of Dag Hammarskjöld.[122] Third, this diplomatic engagement was bolstered by ‘hard diplomacy’, including technical aid and UNEF. Overall, international organisations were active participants in making their articulated goals happen. Interestingly, despite their varying aims and institutional designs, there were remarkable similarities between the operations that each international organisation used in the pursuit of its goals. The IMF, ICRC, and to some extent the UN were very active gatherers of technical information. Furthermore, the ICRC and UN facilitated diplomacy between different entities, acting both as diplomatic agents and forums of dialogue. This overlap in function can explain apparent clashes between organisations; in an address on World Red Cross Day, Dag Hammarskjöld noted that ‘when…the United Nations arranged and carried out the transfer of prisoners of war, the International Committee of the Red Cross lent valued assistance’.[123] The ICRC claimed credit for supervising the same operation—such contradictory reporting was rare, but it demonstrates the extent to which overlapping interests could lead to conflict.[124] While the IMF 1956 Annual Report noted that the UN and IMF ‘have worked together in close association, whenever their interests required it’, there is no evidence they actively cooperated during the Suez Crisis.[125] Still, IOs employed common processes in a way that allows us to consider their role in the resolution of the Suez Crisis collectively, strengthening the argument for an international society approach. Most importantly each of these international organisations sought to embody neutrality in the eyes of states both as an end in itself and as a means to achieving their goals, presenting their actions through a discourse of internationalism.[126] Thus, the humanitarian, monetary, and diplomatic rules and norms promulgated by the ICRC, the IMF, and the UN respectively held weight because they were deemed to be neutral. A Crisis for the World? It is clear that international organisations were deeply involved in making the history of the Suez Crisis. Yet in some ways this conclusion begs more questions than it answers. In this chapter, I will argue that the similarity of the processes affected by IOs and the analogous way that they constructed neutrality in the eyes of states necessitate certain adjustments to the historiography. Most importantly, international organisations must be central to how we understand the course and resolution of the militarised phase of the crisis. Though IOs were not always the principal shapers of events, their status as neutral actors with internationalist aims allowed them to exert an important agency that has hitherto been overlooked. Furthermore, the similarity of the processes that they employed supports the application of the international society approach to the Suez Crisis. I will close with some tentative research recommendations for future scholarship into the crisis International organisations were at the centre of the Suez Crisis from the first shots fired in the Sinai Desert on 29 October 1956 to the reopening of the Canal on 10 April 1957. Though they achieved their articulated goals, the role of states in this process remains to be fully examined. Indeed, most histories of the Suez Crisis have understood international organisations merely as instruments of states; however, this ignores the way that IOs shaped norms, which directed state power.[127] The UN is of primary importance here. For example, the United States exerted diplomatic and economic pressure on Britain, France, and Israel to withdraw in a large part because the UN had laid bare the way that the invaders’ actions violated international norms, which jeopardised the West’s position in the Cold War.[128] As Sir Charles Keightley, Commander in Chief of the British forces, put it, ‘the one overriding lesson of the Suez operation is that world opinion is now an absolute principle of war and must be treated as such‘.[129] In sum, ‘the UN…established norms of government but did not rule’.[130] For just this reason, British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd had attempted to cast Britain’s invasion in terms of ‘an international policing role’, reflecting on 8 November that Britain ‘have heartily welcomed the idea of sending a United Nations force to the area to take over the responsibilities which we have felt bound to shoulder’.[131] A similar narrative of the crisis is repeated in Eden’s memoirs.[132] By consequence, the establishment of UNEF necessitated a French-British withdrawal. Thus, norms coming from the UN exerted agency on state action. It has been noted that international organisations pursued courses of action unavailable to states. Paradoxically, the unique ability of the ICRC to supervise the implementation of humanitarian law and the IMF to maintain monetary stability has led their influence in the crisis to be overlooked. Given the preoccupation of diplomatic historians with state action, it is unsurprising that the historiography has ignored the several problems that states did not face because of IO activity. For example, although the US aid helped to ease pressures on the sterling, it could not have resolved Britain’s balance of payments problem alone.[133] Furthermore, the ICRC’s unique position in the supply of aid to civilians, prisoners of war, and the wounded prevented human disasters and public relations difficulties for the invading powers, which were explicit concerns of British commanders in Port Said.[134] The impact of these two organisations does not appear in the state archives precisely because they were successful. Reflecting on this point, one might model the agency of IOs, then, along a continuum between ‘stage-setting’—the ICRC’s preemption and mitigation of humanitarian problems—and ‘actioning’—the deployment of UNEF. Each IO shaped the crisis in both of these ways, with the UN engaging in the most actioning, the ICRC in stage-setting, and the IMF somewhere in between. Across both of these processes, though, the construction of neutrality by IOs was a means to achieving their goals and an end in itself. Indeed, as research of their aims has shown, the neutral promotion of universal values was central to the internationalist mandates of the UN, the IMF, and the ICRC. Still, the realisation of these goals during the Suez Crisis depended to some extent on the support of the two superpowers, the USA and the USSR. For example, they both supported the intervention of a UN peacekeeping force because each wanted to bring about a British-French withdrawal without facilitating the intervention of the other superpower.[135] Still, though it was important that American and Soviet diplomats accepted the idea, the UN occupied a unique position as an international organisation designed to serve internationalist goals in the formation of an international peacekeeping force. Though the IMF acted according to its own rules in approving the massive rescue package for Britain, its approval was by then in the USA’s interests as Britain had already committed to withdraw from Port Said. In addition, circumstances at Suez did not present the ICRC with difficult questions on how to remain neutral that were faced in other conflicts.[136] Thus, if by their own accounts IOs operated as neutral actors, this depended to some extent on favourable background conditions. Overall, I contend that this study has bolstered the importance of international society as an object of analysis in international history. I have not pursued such an analysis outright, but rather have drawn inspiration from it and examined one facet of building a more holistic, international understanding of the Suez Crisis. By examining the aims and operations of IOs, I have shown that they pursued similar aims and generated influence in comparable ways. Indeed, they often interrelated in their functions. For example, the UN and ICRC jointly managed the transfer of prisoners in the Sinai peninsula. In addition, they sometimes exerted a joint influence of states, even unintentionally. For example, the flight on the sterling was to a large degree motivated by Britain’s weak position at the UN, which pushed Britain into the hands of the IMF.[137] The main point, however, is that the internationalist, neutral aims of IOs were realised through some combination of diplomacy, information gathering, technical aid, and normative influence, which are processes I have identified through primary research. This suggests that in an international society approach to the Suez Crisis individual IOs ought to be examined together. In sum, this study impels the historian to approach the Suez Crisis—and indeed international history—more holistically. In 2008, Scott Lucas noted that ‘various collections from 1991 have tried to represent Suez as a multinational affair, only to run the risk of merely re-scripting the historical play with more actors’.[138] What this study has sought to show is that future research should seek to understand the crisis in terms of international society, a singular category that brings all of these actors—and the historiographies they bring with them—together. My research throws up other future areas of exploration into the Suez Crisis. Most importantly, the Suez Crisis must be recognised as an important moment in the history of the organisations themselves. Indeed, the way that IO officials discussed the crisis reveals a palpable sense of their ‘making history’ for their respective organisations.[139] In addition, historians should build on this study to revisit state archives with international society in mind and perhaps new material will become useful. It will be important to study how different actors shaped norms and other features of international society. Furthermore, the interaction between normative rhetoric in foreign relations and domestic policy ought to be addressed. In view of postcolonial approaches, further study should go into the Eurocentrism lurking behind the ability of IOs to construct neutrality. Perhaps this study of the Suez Crisis begs more questions than answers, but it is certainly a start in the right direction. *** On 4 November 1956, Omar Loufti, the Permanent Representative of Egypt to the United Nations appealed to the sovereign nations of the world, ‘The solution of the problem is in your hands. The eyes of the world are upon you. Yours is a great responsibility’.[140] Several states responded to his call for support, but the resolution of the problem to which he referred—the Suez Crisis—could not have happened in the way that it did without the intervention of international organisations. Acting in ways that states could not, the ICRC, the IMF, and the UN together shaped the course of the crisis and contributed significantly to its conclusion. This study has shown that states did not underestimate their influence; neither should history. Asa Breuss-Burgess Asa Breuss-Burgess is a recent graduate of Keble College, Oxford. Studying History and Politics, he is interested in the application of social scientific theory to the writing of history, especially International Relations scholarship. Alongside his studies he runs Pillow Talk, an events company. Appendix: Archival Sources Washington D.C., International Monetary Fund Archives (IMF) Executive Board Minutes (EBM/169483) Executive Board Documents (EBD/169391) Executive Board Specials (EBS/169337) Press Reports (PREP/183443) Press Releases (PR/169465) Staff memoranda (SM/169374) New York City, United Nations Archives (UNA) Fonds: Secretary General Dag Hammarkjold (1953-1961) Series: Press Releases Items: S-0928-0001-04; S-0928-0001-05 UN Digital Library Security Council Documents Resolutions S/3675, S/3721 Procès Verbal S/PV.743, S/PV.751 Letters S/3649, S/3654, S/3656, S/3674, S/3679, S/3683, S/3712, S/3721, S/3728 General Assembly Documents Resolutions A/RES/377(V), A/RES/997(ES-I), A/RES/998(ES-I), A/RES/999(ES-I), A/RES/1000(ES-I), A/RES/1001(ES-I), A/RES/1002(ES-I), A/RES/1003(ES-I), A/RES/1120(XI), A/RES/1121(XI), A/RES/1123(XI), A/RES/1124(XI) Procès Verbal A/PV.562; A/PV.563; A/PV.565; A/PV.567; A/PV.572; A/PV.594; A/PV.596; A/PV.642; A/PV.652 Committee Reports A/3256; A/3275; A/3276; A/3290; A/3308; A/3309; A/3329; A/3383(Annex)/Rev.1; A/3385/Rev.1; A/3386; A/3501/Rev.1; A/3517 [1] Jean Lacouture and Simone Lacouture, ‘The Night Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal’, Le Monde diplomatique (Paris, July 2002), accessed 6 March 2022. [2] Quoted in Keith Kyle, Suez: Britain’s End of Empire in the Middle East (2nd edn, I.B. Tauris 2003) 7. [3] Jacob Coleman Hurewitz, ‘The Historical Context’ in William Roger Louis and Roger Owen (eds), Suez 1956: The Crisis and Its Consequences (Clarendon Press 1991) 19-30. [4] ibid 22. [5] Mordechai Bar-On, ‘David Ben-Gurion and the Sèvres Collusion’ in ibid 145-60. [6] For memoirs, see Anthony Eden, Full Circle: The Memoirs of Sir Anthony Eden (Cassell 1960); Dwight Eisenhower, The White House Years vol. ii: Waging Peace, 1956–1961 (Doubleday 1965); Howard Macmillan, Riding the Storm, 1956–1959 (Macmillan 1971); Muḥammad Ḥasanayn Haykal, Nasser: The Cairo Documents (New English Library 1972). [7] For diplomatic histories, see Diane Kunz, ‘The Economic Diplomacy of the Suez Crisis’ (Yale University Ph.D thesis 1989); Kyle (n 2); Louis and Owen (n 3); W Scott Lucas, Divided We Stand: Britain, the US and the Suez Crisis (Hodder & Stoughton 1996). [8] See for example James M Boughton, ‘Northwest of Suez: The 1956 Crisis and the IMF’ (2000) 00/192 IMF Working Papers; Norrie MacQueen, Peacekeeping and the International System (Routledge 2005) 61-79; Amy Sayward, The Birth of Development: How the World Bank, Food and Agriculture Organisation and World Health Organisation changed the world, 1945-65 (Kent State University Press 2006) 56-63; Esther Moeller, ‘The Suez Crisis of 1956 as a Moment of Transnational Humanitarian Engagement’ (2016) 23(1-2) European Review of History: Revue Européenne D’histoire 136-53. [9] Kenneth W Abbott and Duncan Snidal, ‘Why States Act through Formal International Organizations’ (1998) 42(1) The Journal of Conflict Resolution 4. [10] Michael N Barnett and Martha Finnemore, ‘The Politics, Power, and Pathologies of International Organizations’ (1999) 53(4) International Organization 707-15. [11] For example, United Nations General Assembly (hereafter UNGA), ‘565th Plenary Meeting’, 4 November 1956, UN, A/PV.565 80. [12] Odd Westad, ‘The Cold War and the International History of the Twentieth Century’ in Melvyn Leffler and Odd Westad (eds), The Cambridge History of the Cold War: Vol. 1 Origins, 1945-1962 (3 vols, Cambridge University Press 2010) 1-19. [13] François Bugnion and Françoise Perret, From Budapest to Saigon: History of the International Committee of the Red Cross, 1956–1965 (ICRC 2009) 2. [14] ibid 5. [15] Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field (adopted 12/08/1949), 75 UNTS 31, Art 9 accessed 1 March 2022. [16] ICRC, Handbook of the International Red Cross, (10th ed, ICRC 1953) 305-11. [17] David Forsythe, ‘On Contested Concepts: Humanitarianism, Human Rights, and the Notion of Neutrality’ (2013) 12(1) Journal of Human Rights 65-6. [18] Gerald Steinacher, Humanitarians at War: The Red Cross in the Shadow of the Holocaust (Oxford University Press 2017) 237-44. [19] ‘The absence of preparation for wartime’. Comité International de la Croix-Rouge (hereafter CICR), ‘De Retour du Moyen-Orient…’ (1956) 38(449) Revue Internationale de la Croix-Rouge (hereafter RICR) 278. [20] ‘Has requested the Governments of the countries involved in the conflict…to guarantee the application of the four 1949 Geneva Conventions’. CICR, ‘La Croix-Rouge et le Conflit de Suez’ (1956) 38(455) RICR 659. [21] ‘Ready to assume the tasks laid out for it by the Geneva Conventions’. Ibid. [22] ibid 661. [23] John Keith Horsefield and Margaret Garritsen De Vries, The International Monetary Fund, 1945-1965: Twenty Years of International Monetary Cooperation (3 vols, International Monetary Fund 1969) ii 40. [24] ibid 3-18. [25] ‘Annual Report, 1956’, 23 May 1956, IMF, SM/56/43, 134. [26] Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund (adopted 27/12/1945), 2 UNTS 39, Art. 1(i) accessed 1 March 2022. [27] ibid Art. 1(ii). [28] Ian Hurd, International Organizations: Politics, Law, Practice, (4th edn, Cambridge University Press 2021) 146. [29] Articles (n 26) Art. 12, section 4, (c). [30] ‘Executive Board Meeting’, 22 September 1956, IMF, EBM/56/48. [31] Charter of the United Nations (adopted 24 October 1945), 1 UNTS 16, Preamble accessed 1 March 2022. [32] MacQueen (n 8) 61. [33] ibid 68. [34] Charter (n 31) Art. 1. [35] ibid Art. 2. [36] Thomas G Weiss, ‘The United Nations: Before, During and After 1945’ (2015) 91(6) International Affairs 1230. [37] United Nations Security Council (hereafter UNSC), ‘Resolution 118’, 13 October 1956, UN, S/3675; Kyle (n 2) 148. [38] UNSC, ‘Resolution 119’, 31 October 1956, UN, S/3721. [39] UNGA, ‘Uniting for Peace’, 3 November 1950, UN, A/RES/377(V). [40] UNGA, ‘Resolution 997 (ES-I)’, 2 November 1956, UN, A/RES/997(ES-I). [41] For example, see UNGA, ‘Resolution 998 (ES-I)’, 4 November 1956, UN, A/RES/998(ES-I). [42] Charter (n 31) Art. 97. [43] ‘Statement by Secretary-General after Security Council Action over Suez’, 13 October 1956, UNA, Press Release SG/510. [44] UNSC, ‘751th Meeting’, 31 October 1956, UN, S/PV.751 1-2. [45] Sandrine Kott, ‘Cold War Internationalism’ in Patricia Clavin and Glenda Sluga (eds), Internationalisms: A Twentieth-Century History (Cambridge University Press 2017) 340. [46] Moeller (n 8) 137. [47] Bugnion and Perret (n 13) 63-82. [48] CICR (n 20) 659-60. [49] Bugnion and Perret (n 13) 68. [50] ‘Letter from the UN secretary-general to the ICRC president’, 4 December 1956, ICRC Archives, B AG 201 139-001 quoted in Bugnion and Perret (n 13) 79. [51] CICR, ‘Le rapatriement des prisonniers de guerre dans le Proche-Orient’ (1957) 39(459) RICR 162. [52] Moeller (n 8) 143. [53] CICR, ‘L’action du Comité International dans le Proche-Orient’ (1957) 39(458) RICR 92. [54] CICR (n 51) 163. [55] Moeller (n 8) 144. [56] CICR, ‘L’action du Comité International dans le Proche-Orient’ (1956) 38(456) RICR 732. [57] CICR (n 20) 661. [58] Moeller (n 8) 145. [59] Bugnion and Perret (n 13) 73. [60] ‘During their captivity all prisoners in Israel and Egypt were supported’. CICR (n 51) 158. [61] ‘Remains characteristic of the fulfilment of the tasks of the [ICRC] within the framework of the Geneva Conventions’. CICR (n 53) 90. [62] ‘Special aid funds [were] immediately opened up to the victims of the events’. CICR (n 56) 732. [63] CICR, ‘Égypte’ (1957) 39(461) RICR 283. [64] Moeller (n 8) 141. [65] CICR (n 53) 91. [66] ‘That a request was made by two Red Crescent vehicles, containing Egyptians, to proceed to Port Said and inquires if General Burns could be approached on the Subject’, 10 November 1956, TNA, JE 1094/90, fo. 371/1118906 quoted in Moeller (n 8) 141. [67] CICR (n 56) 734. [68] CICR, ‘La Croix-Rouge au secours des sinistrés de Port-Saïd (1957) 39(459) RICR 165. [69] Moeller (n 8) 142. [70] CICR (n 20) 661; CICR (n 53) 89. [71] CICR (n 56) 733; CICR (n 53) 94. [72] ‘In close contact’. CICR (n 53) 94; CICR, ‘L’activité du Comité’ (1957) 39(457) RICR 27. [73] ‘Use of the Fund’s Resources - Egypt’, 21 September 1956, IMF, EBS/56/28 3. [74] Boughton (n 8) 10. [75] ‘1956 Consultations - France’, 17 October 1956, IMF, SM/56/61 (Supplement 2) 2. [76] ‘Executive Board Meeting’, 17 October 1956, IMF, EBM/56/51. [77] 18 October 1956, IMF, PR/243. [78] Boughton (n 8) 5. [79] ‘Use of the Fund’s Resources - Egypt’, 30 January 1957, IMF, EBS/57/7 (Supplement 1) 4. [80] ‘Minutes of Executive Board Meeting’, 4 February 1957, IMF, EBM/57/5 2-3. [81] ‘Israel - Revision of Quota’, 19 October 1956, IMF, EBS/56/31, 1; ‘Par Value for Israel’, 26 October 1956, IMF, EBD/56/124. [82] ‘1956 Consultations - Israel’, 5 February 1957, IMF, SM/57/12 16. [83] ‘Minutes of Executive Board Meeting’, 27 February 1957, IMF, EBM/57/10 15. [84] ‘Use of the Fund’s Resources - Israel’, 13 May 1957, IMF, EBS/57/26 (Supplement 1). [85] ‘Cobbold to Macmillan’, October 17 1956, TNA, T 236/4188 quoted in Kunz (n 7) 197. [86] Kunz (n 7) 353. [87] ibid 152. [88] ibid 230. [89] ibid 246. [90] Kyle (n 2) 464; Boughton (n 8) 19. [91] ‘Use of the Fund’s Resources - United Kingdom’, 7 December 1956, IMF, EBS/56/44 1. [92] ‘United Kingdom - Background Material’, 7 December 1956, IMF, SM/56/83 7. [93] ‘1956 Consultations - United Kingdom’, 11 February 1957, IMF, SM/57/14 19. [94] ‘Executive Board Meeting’, 10 December 1956, IMF, EBM/56/59 3. [95] ibid. [96] Kunz (n 7) 1. [97] ibid 5. [98] See footnote in ibid 279. [99] Boughton (n 8) 5. [100] Horsefield and De Vries (n 23) i, 441. [101] ‘1957 Consultations - United Kingdom’, 10 December 1957, IMF, SM/57/101 4. [102] Boughton (n 8) 26. [103] IMF, EBM/57/10, 11. [104] ‘IMF Wins Over the Skeptics’, 30 March 1957, IMF, PREP/57/3. [105] Edward Johnson, ‘The Suez Crisis at the United Nations’ in Simon C Smith (ed), Reassessing Suez 1956: New Perspectives on the Crisis and Its Aftermath (Ashgate 2008) 170. [106] Weiss (n 36) 1226. [107] ibid 1227. [108] UN, S/3675; UNGA, ‘567th Plenary Meeting’, 7 November 1956, UN, A/PV.567. [109] UN, A/RES/997(ES-I); UN, A/RES/998(ES-I); UNGA, ‘Resolution 1002 (ES-I)’, 5 November 1956, UN, A/RES/1002(ES-I); UNGA, ‘Resolution 1120(XI)’, 24 November 1956, UN, A/RES/1120(XI). [110] UNGA, ‘Resolution 1123 (XI)’, 19 January 1957, UN, A/RES/1123(XI); UNGA, ‘Resolution 1124 (XI)’, 2 February 1957, UN, A/RES/1124(XI). [111] Peter Lyon, ‘The Commonwealth and the Suez Crisis’ in Louis and Owen (n 3) 257-274; UN, A/PV.567 126-7. [112] UNGA, ‘563rd Plenary Meeting’, 3 November 1956, UN, A/PV.563 46. [113] UN, A/PV.567 124. [114] Ibid., 106; UN, A/PV.563 59. [115] Kyle (n 2) 277-88. [116] M. Tudor, ‘Blue Helmet Bureaucrats: UN Peacekeeping Missions and the Formation of the Post-Colonial International Order, 1956-1971’ (Manchester University Ph.D thesis 2020) 47. [117] Manuel Fröhlich, ‘The ‘Suez Story’: Dag Hammarskjöld, the United Nations and the creation of UN peacekeeping’ in Henning Melber and Carsten Stahn (eds), Peace Diplomacy, Global Justice and International Agency: Rethinking Human Security and Ethics in the Spirit of Dag Hammarskjöld (Cambridge University Press 2014) 334. [118] ibid 330. [119] UNGA, ‘Second and final report of the Secretary-General on the plan for an emergency international United Nations force’, 6 November 1956, UN, A/3302 2. [120] UNGA, ‘Resolution 1121 (XI)’, 24 November 1956, UN, A/RES/1121(XI). [121] ‘UN Pamphlet on UNEF’, 1 March 1957, UNA, S-0313-0002-12, 17 quoted in Tudor (n 116) 64. [122] Fröhlich (n 117) 308. [123] ‘Message from United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld on World Red Cross Day’, Security Council Action over Suez’, 3 May 1957, UNA, Press Release SG/591. [124] CICR (n 53) 93. [125] IMF, SM/56/43 141. [126] Eva-Maria Muschik, ‘Managing the World: The United Nations, Decolonization, and the Strange Triumph of State Sovereignty in the 1950s and 1960s’ (2018) 13(1) Journal of Global History 122. [127] See for example Kyle (n 2); Lucas (n 7); Nigel John Ashton, Eisenhower, Macmillan and the Problem of Nasser: Anglo-American Relations and Arab Nationalism, 1955-59 (Macmillan 1996); Simon C Smith, Ending Empire in the Middle East: Britain, the United States and Post-war Decolonization, 1945-1973 (Routledge 2012). [128] Peter G Boyle, ‘The Hungarian Revolution and the Suez Crisis’ (2005) 90(4/300) History 564. [129] Sir Charles Keightley, 11 December 1957 quoted in Kyle (n 2) 392. [130] Muschik (n 126) 125. [131] Tudor (n 116) 61; UN, A/PV.567 112 [132] Eden (n 6) 522-27. [133] Boughton (n 8) 26. [134] Moeller (n 8) 144. [135] John C Campbell, ‘The Soviet Union, the United States, and the Twin Crises of Hungary and Suez’ in Louis and Owen (n 3) 247. [136] Michael N Barnett, The Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism (Cornell University Press 2011) 133. [137] Kyle (n 2) 464. [138] Scott Lucas, ‘Conclusion’ in Smith (n 105) 239. [139] Bugnion and Perret (n 13) 80; Horsefield and De Vries (n 23) i, 426; UNGA, ‘594th Plenary Meeting’, 24 November 1956, UN, A/PV.594 295. [140] UN, A/PV.565 80.

Three Stories of Art and War III коли гуркочуть гармати- музи замовкають The Russian invasion catapulted the Ukrainian art world into crisis, and desperate measures were undertaken to secure staff, collections, and artists. Dreams are deferred but stubborn resilience manifests as a desire to not only protect cultural heritage, but also somehow provide opportunities for continued creativity. Three institutions from all regions of Ukraine—Central, East, and West—reflect on their current challenges, on how they are coping, and what might be in store for the future. When cannons roar, the muses will not fall silent. The Jam Factory was on the verge of its debut as an interdisciplinary contemporary art centre in a repurposed industrial space in the Western Ukrainian city of Lviv when the Russian invasion started. Jam Factory General Director Bozhena Pelenska has a background in art and culture management, with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, an overseas scholarship year of study at the University of Ottawa, as well as a master’s degree in cultural studies from Lviv National University through a programme affiliated with the Central European University. She fled temporarily to Poland at the onset of hostilities to place her young daughter in a safer environment and has been returning to Lviv to continue preparations for the opening in now radically changed circumstances. This interview was conducted on 16 April 2022. Peter Bejger, for CJLPA: Please describe the Jam Factory. Bozhena Pelenska: The Jam Factory[1] is a complex of several buildings in the Pidzamche industrial district of Lviv. The main part, when you arrive at the site, is a beautiful old building which looks like a castle. It was built in a neo-Gothic style, with a tower, and the building was originally used to produce alcoholic beverages in the Austrian period, and jam during the Soviet era. This was a heritage building and had to be adapted and restored correctly. Our approach was to preserve as much as possible and to be true to ourselves. By May everything should have been finished. We had our timeline and date. The international press conference was planned for 4 April. We had our final timeline where the curators had to present the programme. The opening date actually was set for 26 August. That was in our calendar. This is where the war caught us. PB: Has everything been frozen now? Or is work continuing? BP: The first week (of the war) was a shock for everyone. My colleagues and I couldn’t do anything the first week. We wanted to volunteer, to do something crucial, and for me this was important. When the air raids began, we were afraid and all of us in the neighbourhood used the basement of the building as a shelter. Lviv was being hit by rockets. Our first question was: what can we do? We gave our offices to internally displaced people as a refuge. Also, regarding the renovations, many of the workers were from Central or Eastern Ukraine. In the early morning of the day the war started, they immediately returned to their families, to Kharkiv, or they became soldiers and joined the military to defend their cities. After a week and a half of the war, we had a meeting with the construction company to see if they could complete the renovation. Would they be able to get workers, material, and finish the Jam Factory? We are awaiting their response. PB: Who is the owner of Jam Factory? BP: He is a private investor, Dr Harald Binder, who is a Swiss academic with a special interest in East Central Europe and a cultural entrepreneur who lives in Vienna and London. He is the owner of the buildings, and he is the investor, or philanthropist, who invests all the costs in renovation. Constance Uzwyshyn, for CJLPA: So, he bought the building? BP: Yes. It was purchased by Dr Binder and it is part of his Foundation. He also established in Lviv in 2004 the Centre for Urban History[2] which is different from the Jam Factory and concentrates on academic research with an extensive public programme of lectures, exhibits, and events. CU: I would like to talk about how your programme works, as well as the concept and the vision. BP: The vision for the Jam Factory was to create an international art centre. I wanted to have a curatorial approach that would be rigorous, and we would create exhibitions of Ukrainian artists from Ukraine, Ukrainian artists that are abroad, and also international artists. This centre for contemporary art is important, in order to show Ukrainian art as an integral part of Europe and involved in world discourses. One of the biggest problems is that many people are not familiar with Ukrainian contemporary artists, or the Ukrainian avant-garde. We are connected to Europe, despite the borders separating us for many years. We have wonderful, brilliant artists who use different contemporary approaches in either the visual arts, painting, installation, or media arts. One of the artists we wanted to exhibit was Olena Turyanska. We want to be inclusive. For example, we had one artist who is transgender. The curator selected the artist because of the interesting work. We want to be inclusive as much as possible, but we also want to have this frank approach where we choose what we believe is good and important and that can really talk about the subject. Our first exhibition was to be ‘Organic Community’ and it was to involve theatre, music, and the visual arts. It was to include issues of colonialism and appropriation, ecology and human relationships, and modernisation. Colonialism is a very important topic today in Ukraine, with the war. We wanted to show that Ukrainian artists are engaged in global issues and showcase them to the world. And all this is created in Lviv! CU: Now we are in a war, and you are living in Poland with your child, right? What’s next? Can you even make plans for the future? BP: Well, I will be frank with you. Actually, it was a very hard decision for me to leave. I actually felt very guilty leaving Lviv because I felt I had to stay in Ukraine and do everything I need to do and do whatever is necessary. But on the first day there were all these sirens, and it was such a shock. I was so frightened, especially for my daughter. This was so stressful for her, and I simply didn’t know what was going to happen. I had a friend in Warsaw and she said, ‘Come, I have a room. My son will move out of his room and I will put a mattress on the floor and you can sleep there’. I didn’t know, I didn’t know…And there was someone with a car and they had two places and they said they were leaving in ten minutes. I took my backpack and my daughter’s backpack and our laptops and fled. This was one of the hardest decisions in my life. PB: How old is your daughter now? BP: She’s twelve now. It was very hard travelling, and it took 30 hours to get to the border.[3] But this was the moment when my responsibility for my daughter and the unknown future prevailed and I decided I must leave. Yes, there were a lot of difficulties, but I returned to Lviv last week. It is still very stressful for children, and adults for that matter. If you can imagine all these sirens. I have recorded some of them. There is martial law and a curfew and you have to return home very quickly. There is a shortage of different products. Of course, this is also a very exciting time for creating now and more people are in Lviv. And now after 50 days of war a lot of people are starting to write that they are ready to do something. It is so strange, there are few children in Lviv. I recently spoke with Harald about how we will renew activities. However, it is hard to plan. There are many battles and then it is so psychologically difficult. I want to finish the renovations and we may open the Jam Factory, but now in totally different conditions. We don’t know many things. PB: I understand now you are actively engaging with artists to help them through this crisis? BP: Quite a lot of artists have said that they are blocked, and unable to create. Many are participating in humanitarian aid or doing military service. There are so many different stories. We created a program in response to the war. It’s called ‘Artists at War’ and a lot of artists can apply to this programme. We do not demand them to create, but we ask them in the next six months to create something in their work relating to the war. And we want these works to help us to collect funds, to help other artists. And I think we might also produce an exhibition later. CU: So, you give them money to do this, is that the idea? BP: We have collected some money for them already, and we are asking people to donate for that programme. We are selecting, we are looking at who the artist is…we are looking at their portfolios, and if they fit our criteria, we give them money for their needs and we ask them to create. The conditions are quite easy as we understand it’s already very hard to create, but I think this would encourage them and it’s important to give them a voice in these conditions. PB: What is the mood like in Lviv now when you returned? What is it like psychologically? BP: Oh well, I met quite a lot of people. They are exhausted and cannot sleep. They are very motivated to do as much as possible. A lot of volunteer work is being done. However, with some people there is a new feeling. They feel so vulnerable. There are so many people from the East or the northern part of the Kyiv region who have lost so much. They are in shelters and this situation tires them so much. I feel I can’t rest because they are not resting and I am conflicted about why I care so much about me when they have nothing? This is psychologically difficult. But many people are still very motivated to help. PB: You might want to think about this question. How might the influx of people into Lviv have changed the art scene there? BP: You know, it has changed a lot. And it is changing now. PB: What’s going to happen with the Ukrainian art scene now, as it’s dispersed? BP: It is changing now. For example, in theatre. We are also working in theatre. As you know Kharkiv is totally destroyed.[4] Kharkiv was quite strong in theatre, in experimental theatre groups. They had a very good and very strong theatrical school, and people there. And most of them are now in Lviv. They very quickly created a new group and they started to perform. I think they will stay. One of the leaders, his last name is Utsyk, Anton Utsyk, said that most probably they will stay in Lviv and in Kharkiv after the war is over. So they created this group, and I’m sure it is already an influence, and I was thinking how I as a Jam Factory director can engage with them. We can give them space, maybe to one of the groups. And this will already change Lviv. And one of the designers, he is also in Lviv. He is from Kyiv. I’m sure he is going to change things quite a lot. It’s hard to envision exactly how, but I really hope for much better in the future for all of us who have been brought together quite unexpectedly. CU: I know, it’s tough. Eight years you worked on this, right? So close. But you know what? It will happen. I just know the world will come into Lviv and it will be very exciting. Just hold on. This interview was conducted by Constance Uzwyshyn and Peter Bejger. Constance Uzwyshyn is an expert on Ukrainian contemporary art. She founded Ukraine’s first foreign-owned professional art gallery, the ARTEast Gallery, in Kyiv. Having written a masters dissertation entitled The Emergence of the Ukrainian Contemporary Art Market, she is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge researching Ukrainian contemporary art. She is also CJLPA 2’s Executive Editor and the Ukrainian Institute of London’s Creative Industries Advisor. Peter Bejger is an editor, filmmaker, and writer based in San Francisco. He was a Fulbright Research Scholar in Ukraine, where he wrote and produced a documentary film on Secession-era architecture of the city of Lviv. Previously, he lived in Kyiv for several years, where he worked as a journalist, media consultant, and cultural critic. [1] See accessed 1 June 2022. [2] See accessed 9 May 2022. [3] Lviv is located about 70 kilometres (43 miles) from the Polish border. [4] Taylor Dafoe, ‘Kharkiv’s Palace of Culture was Destroyed by a Russian Missile Attack, Leaving Eight Injured’ (Artnews, 24 May 2022) accessed 25 May 2022.

Oleg Tistol is one of Ukraine’s leading contemporary artists, who works with stereotypes associated with Ukrainian everyday life and current affairs. His artwork cleverly juxtaposes Ukraine’s historical past with current issues through day-to-day imagery. The results are alluring and provocative, yet playful. However, since the beginning of the Russian invasion into Ukraine, Tistol has sought safety from the bombs by living in his basement art studio with his wife, daughter, and a friend. His art production has been greatly affected by this war and his unique perspective on ‘freedom’ and the release of the oppressive shackles of the Russian imperialistic narrative has had a profound effect on the work he now creates. This interview was conducted on 14 April 2022. Oleg Tistol: My apologies, the air raid sirens are howling now. There is noise from the street. Constance Uzwyshyn, for CJLPA: Tell us about the painting for the Journal’s back cover (fig. 1). OT: The shadow was a very important theme for me before the war. Actually, we have lived with this feeling…the war has now lasted eight years [a reference to the initial invasion by the Russians in Donbas and annexation of Crimea in 2014]. That is why somehow this shadow is from the distant past, so I created a big exhibition from it (figs. 2, 3 & 4). This was a premonition, a photo document, a painting more important and striking than a photo. If I was going to do a portrait now of Peter, for example, I would make a shadow, and this would be more of a document than some other vision. Now, about this painting (fig. 1). To think about art was very difficult during this last month. I asked my daughter Nadiya to draw my portrait because self-portraits are a problem (fig. 5). Someone must draw the shadow. This was a difficult period, but it was positive in a sense as we had not spent much time together earlier. Nadiya and I were in one studio together all month and I understood that my shadows are not superfluous or arbitrary. This is something very important and serious to me; it is sort of a document. It was a very cold-blooded documentation and is the way I am today…it is how I stand. It’s very important this shadow was done by Nadiya because throughout the month it was about survival and saving your life and those of your dear ones. This was the problem that had to be resolved and this is what the painting is about. What kind of war? You either feel it or you don’t. I don’t want to say anything about the war to the viewer. Either it’s there or it isn’t. Right now, I don’t want to say anything about the ‘katsaps’ [a traditional Ukrainian derogatory term for Russians].[1] I don’t want to say anything about the war. This is an issue for writers, journalists, and most of all, for the military. CU: How would you translate ‘katsap’ into English? Is its very specific terminology impossible to translate? OT: ‘Katsap’ is in reality a Turkic word that has the meaning of ‘butcher’. This is an ancient term. Even Solzhenitsyn[2] called them this. In this context, it is the most appropriate term. I know this word from birth. Ukrainian villagers know this term. We thought this term stems from ‘tsap’. That is, an animal, sheep. But no. It means a killer. It means butcher. In Turkey, the butcher shops are called ‘kasap’.[3] This is not slang, and this is not an insult. I like very accurate cultural designations. And if I call a person by what they truly are, then you better understand the cultural context. CU: I see in this painting you are standing on a crate, could you explain this? OT: This is a very old Soviet crate. Perhaps it was some military item. I have had this in my studio for a very long time. There are instruments inside. Tools for work. Why this crate? I intuitively felt that I needed this crate. On one hand this could be a pediment for a monument. This is ironic. I understand that I can’t be a monument. But on the other hand, it provides an unevenness, an unpredictability. I am small, standing on this big crate. This does not even reflect fear, but an attempt to find our place. You understand that you are very small, that you are not confident in your place in any context. This was very important for me. CU: This painting is evocative, so strong! Your palette presents the colours of the Ukrainian flag and your blue self-portrait, your shadow of Tistol, stands proud as you gaze into the golden horizon calmly holding a cigarette. I am very moved by the piece and for me it represents the spirit of Ukrainians. Peter Bejger, for CJLPA: How should one work today in light of present conditions? You have had a very long and successful career. How do you continue to work, or perhaps not work, during this time of war? OT: I have made the paintings we were discussing (Shadow Paintings) as also nine small canvases (figs. 6 & 7). Today I was in the studio, and I understood that on some of these canvases I will do something completely different. In the next month I want to redo them. My career, my life, has transpired over 31 years in the Soviet Union and now, this summer, will mark 31 years in an independent Ukraine. The 24 August, the Independence Day for Ukraine, is almost my 62nd birthday. I had an exhibition in Lutsk and Lviv in 2020 and it was called Sixty Years of Independence. I was born on 25 August. The Lutsk Museum staged a large exhibit for me, opening on my birthday, and I decided to call it that. My entire life has been a struggle for my own personal independence and an observation of the history of Ukrainian independence. This has always been a part of my art. My first known paintings were based on ‘unification’, Khmelnytsky, and the Battle of Poltava.[4] It is called Reunion (fig. 8), which is my first well known painting.[5] After this painting, my artwork changed and was reactive to current affairs. Perhaps it would be shadows, or palms, or mountains, or perhaps God willing I will paint Peter with a Cat.[6] (figs. 9, 10 & 11). Now, my paintings will be something different and I delight in this. I like cultural attributes! That is, thirty years ago when I was explaining the meaning of Reunion, and Ukraine’s independence, very few understood the history of Ukraine. Even twenty years ago only a few understood, or knew, the history of Ukraine. I like the current discussion about Ukraine because of the war. I like the international context because everyone understands what is happening. The word katsap[7] is not an insult. No emotions here. It is an enemy. This is an attempt to delineate major cultural positions. Now everyone understands that Ukraine is very close to Western Civilisation, though I think there is only one civilisation. The war is cultural. A war between culture and anti-culture. What we have in this context from Russia is really a great error on the part of the global community. That is, the error has been committed during the last 200 years on what they see is ‘the great Russian culture’. It is really a cargo cult culture process.[8] It imitates cultural processes, but it is done from completely different motivations. PB: I would like to ask you about identity. Ukrainian identity, and Russian identity. Perhaps you can explain your views on identity and the growth of Ukrainian identity since Ukraine’s independence. OT: This is my personal interpretation: Ukrainian identity is not ethnic. It is about territory and cultural identity. On the Maidan in 2014,[9] there was a huge banner that proclaimed, ‘Freedom is our Religion’. Everybody immediately understood that the first trait for Ukrainians is the striving for individual freedom. And thus, I am now against Ukraine joining the EU. I don’t want to end up in a union with the French, Hungarians, and Germans. I want to be in one union with the British, the Canadians, and Americans. We have one mentality. I name these countries as those of personal freedom and individualism, the weight of the individual is very important. I don’t like these bureaucratic countries. I am from Kozak[10] roots. This is an identity, striving for personal freedom, and that is why I speak sternly about civilization. As for Ukrainian identity, this was understood very clearly during the war. There were very few people in Kyiv during the first month of the war and we all became very cognizant of one another, just like we did during the Maidan. People immediately asked each other, ‘How can I help you?’. People were very solicitous to one another. All these volunteer services were very well organised, and we all looked after each other. This is the behaviour of free people. These are very straightforward values, and we have a union of people for whom these values are common. Somebody who has different values becomes a collaborator or leaves. This is an ancient village culture. And what is Ukrainian culture? A pursuit for more interaction and a beautiful, joyful life. I now identify myself as a folkloric artist. Not by coincidence, we chatted earlier about the group DakhaBrakha.[11] This is folk music, ethno. Nadiya began her career as an ethno singer. I now feel that I am a very straightforward, let us say, ethno folkloric artist. What I do is folk, which has a relationship to European civilisation, to American. I am interested in these cultures, these cultural processes. Why do we need art? So, life would be beautiful. PB: In the future, after this war, what is to be done with Russia? Russia is a neighbour. How do you live with this? OT: Seriously, over the last 100 years, there were four names for Russia. First there was the Russian Empire to 1917. Then it was called the RSFR, then SSSR, then the RF. Four names in just over 100 years. Geographic boundaries changed. Doctrines changed. But all in all, it remained the same. In the future, we can’t talk about a country called ‘Russia’. We don’t know how many countries will emerge from it. What their relations will be. I am certain of this, because I am a very big specialist on katsaps. From 1984 to 1986, I was in the Soviet Army in a special unit in the nuclear forces. Yes, a specialised nuclear unit. It didn’t even have a name, just a number: 31600. This number was on my military document. Nothing else was noted, and there were no references to aviation or rocket forces, only the number. They only took people from the deepest and middle part of Russia. I ended up there because I was an artist with higher education. They needed a specialist. All the other thousands of personnel were from the Urals, or Siberia, the same people who recently did what they did in Bucha.[12] I lived with them for two years in one barrack. I left from there a conscious Ukrainian. This did not happen after art school in Kyiv, nor after the art academy in Lviv, but after the Soviet army. I lived with them in close quarters, these katsaps, for two years in one setting, I understood we were aliens from different planets and two completely different cultural worlds. This is why I easily prognosticate their behaviour and their future. They will have many problems and will battle among each other. And for us geographically in Ukraine, we will have to control all this. They will be killing each other for quite a long time. Someone will call himself a chief or a leader and they will be battling each other. They will be battling for resources, food, or anything, and we will have to control this. I don’t see any other variant. This can’t be considered bad or frightening. God gave us this kind of neighbour. This is how it will end. There is no other variant. What is most important is to drive them away from us and not interfere. I think our war will end in Chechnya. It all started in Chechnya[13] and will end there. They [the Russians] strongly dislike Ukrainians, but they hate the Chechens more. Whether they want it or not, it will end there. They will have to resolve their internal problems and I am absolutely sure of that. There are already the first signs of this. After Ukraine, the weakest link is the Caucasus. This is why for many years I painted the canvas Kazbek (fig. 13), and why I gave explanatory texts to that from the Kobzar by [Taras] Shevchenko[14], from the poem ‘Kavkaz’ (The Caucasus).[15] Everything is written there. Now Shevchenko is better understood in a broader sense. I was reading Shevchenko every day in the army. This book was like a Bible to me, and I read the entire library of his work. Every day a little Shevchenko was psychotherapy for me. This is why I consider myself an autochthone, not considering my complex ethnic background. I am a typical Ukrainian because culturally this is the most important book for me and now everybody understands this. CU: In your opinion, what is the identity of a Ukrainian? OT: To be Ukrainian is a conscious choice. If you want to live on this territory, with the rules we live by and with, you quickly become a Ukrainian. For example, the first guy who died on the Maidan was Serhiy Nigoyan,[16] an Armenian. He read Shevchenko. He was born into an Armenian family in Ukraine. He simply was Ukrainian: by mentality, behaviour, and the cultural code. You see this in 2014 in the Revolution of Dignity, known as the Maidan. This is dignity. This is not honour. Every Ukrainian has this feeling of dignity because otherwise you couldn’t live with yourself among your own. Dignity unites us. This is reflected in behaviour by me and Nadiya. I very much like to engage with my equals, that is people who have similar values. This is a characteristic trait, something that is passed from one person to another, and you find this very much in Shevchenko. There is everything there about human dignity. This is a key Ukrainian term. This Revolution of Dignity, this is very important to study. We now have to carry it forward. PB: We talked about Ukraine and Russia, now I would like to discuss the international community. You know that in the West now there are assertions we are in a post-national phase. We also search for identity, but it is often not built on national principles. This is a question about the role of nationalism and international relations. How can the international community support your struggle in Ukraine? There are very complex processes happening now in the West regarding nationalism and identity. I would like to hear your thoughts on what you see in the West and the international community. OT: First of all, there is not one fascist in the Ukrainian parliament. Not one communist. So, the problem of nationalism: we don’t have ethnic problems here. What can you say about a country whose president is Jewish? Our Ukrainian nationalism is geographically cultural. There is a problem here in terminology. This word ‘nationalism’ in the Western world is very negative and I understand this. If this is about racism, then this is frightening but we don’t have this problem. I mean this is a very minor problem that is almost not discernible. Now after 30 years when someone calls themselves a nationalist, this refers to a battle with a foreign enemy. One enemy. There is one enemy. You have to be very clear here with terminology. Ukrainian nationalism is not ethnic. It is absolutely not ethnic. I understand that American problem. I understand French historical problems. Here it is completely different. We are forming a cultural nation, and what other term can we choose but nation? I like the American project, an artificial nation. A group of wise people gathered together to create a nation of the future. This is the project of the United States. This is not a technical dream, but a cultural dream. This is the same for Ukraine’s battle for national identity. This has an American sense in the national. When the national anthem is played, people of all colours stand. They are united for a way of life. This is the American dream. The Ukrainian dream is freedom and dignity. Period. CU: How would you define who Ukrainians are? OT: Exotic! We are all exotic. I accept this. I know who I am, and from where I originate, and this is interesting for me and informs my creativity. However, this exoticism is very important within the civilizational process. That is, the rules of behaviour among people and cultural exchanges. Culture is simply the exchange of beauty. For what? For peaceful and fortunate co-existence. How does the so-called Russian culture differ? It is an instrument of expansion. In the beginning they bring you Dostoyevsky, and later a tank will arrive. Absolutely! Look at the map of this war. Look at where the katsaps have fathered and then where they are fighting. This is in the Russian-language territories. They are there where they thought they would be greeted. The Russians are not being greeted; they are being killed. But they came to where Russian is spoken. As for the Ukrainian cultural process, Ukrainians dissolve into the world and know themselves from the inside that they are Ukrainian. This is for the children, the family, the parents. This is very important. When you are on the street you should be like everyone else, you respect those among who you live. This is a very important cultural trait, for a true culture. This is when you offer people some sort of beauty and you accept their beauty. Something very important happened during this war. I have long felt this and so have many others also. Perhaps this doesn’t sound very polite, but many Ukrainians absolutely don’t care what the world thinks of them. Thirty years ago, when I was in Switzerland, I was addressed, ‘Oh you’re Russian’. I quietly listened and then said, ‘Oh, you are German’. They were offended. I asked why you are offended. ‘You write in German, speak in German. You are German’. It is different now. If, after thirty years of Ukrainian existence, and the war, somebody in Switzerland doesn’t know about Ukraine, I wouldn’t bother to explain. I will not speak. I am not interested. Now about the world context of Ukrainian culture, for example, for me, my favourite writers are Hemingway and Shakespeare, and my favourite music from my youth was by the Rolling Stones, Genesis, and Led Zeppelin. I was formed by all this. Well, I may be considered ‘exotic’, but for me all people are exotic. The more exotic the persona, the more interesting they are. If there is a trait in a person that I do not have, that is interesting for me (fig. 15). PB: I have a last question…a question on trauma. Ukraine is experiencing a tremendous trauma now with the war. Every nation has their own trauma. How does art deal with trauma? How can Ukrainian artists deal with this trauma? OT: It’s actually the reverse. We have had 300 years of frightening trauma living one way or another within Russia. What is happening now: this trauma is like cutting off diseased parts. We are removing the trauma. The issue is sin. For example, I served in the Soviet army. If someone asks me about this time, I say I was a collaborator. Forty years ago, I was a collaborator and there was no other alternative. The issue is that these ‘Russian’ ‘victories’ from the past were done by the hands of Ukrainians and they were the best components of the ‘Russian’ army. Now, this trauma, meaning Russification…I am delighted is no more. A year ago, I got into a taxi and Russian ‘chanson’ music would have been playing.[17] I no longer hear that. The trauma will not be with Ukrainians, it will be with the Russians. Those who call themselves Russian, will have a horrible trauma. It will be similar to what the Germans experienced in 1945. For Ukrainians, we will be exiting a trauma. It will never be necessary to explain why it’s not worth reading Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. We no longer have to participate in the propagandistic lie of the ‘Great Russian Narrative’. Now everything has become clear. This problem of trauma: I no longer want to paint canvases of ‘unification’ or Russians. I am no longer interested. There are very many people from my circle, and my family, who now have to decide what to do with all those books of katsap classical literature. What should we do with these books? It is not necessary to just carry them out to the garbage. We need to tear off the covers so children will no longer read them. This is escaping the trauma. No matter how horrible this may sound…for eight years we couldn’t throw out the books, because books are a treasure. But you have to understand that this is a horrible thing. It traumatises the mind. You can’t give children Mein Kampf to read. You can’t do that. It’s the same here. This cultural cleansing is already being felt. There will be no need to pass legislation on language. Speak any language you want. It’s just important you don’t carry these ideas of slavery. So, this would no longer be the case. We have transcended the trauma. You can see this in people on the streets. You see this in social media, everywhere. Done! No more trauma. No more doubts. Nobody will no longer wonder if we are Europe, or not Europe. It’s obvious we are Europe. This is geography. I would like to add a summary. This is very important. You may think this sounds horrible and cynical, but this war is very useful. This war had to happen. You don’t want war, you absolutely don’t want it, but it had to happen. We have to await the end, and there may be more frightening events, but this addresses the issue of cleansing. We have to win in this cleansing. And we will win, definitely. In an informal discussion after the interview Tistol described the current mood in Kyiv. OT: Well, it is more intensive now…there is a curfew and I have to still get to my mother. As for life here now, every day it’s getting better and more peaceful. Cafes are reopening. People are coming out. There are still fewer people or children on the streets. But it is somehow better. The first month (after the start of the war) was very scary. But I understand how much we all love Kyiv. It was an absolutely empty Kyiv then, with the anti-tank barricades. I was very happy we didn’t leave. There was a very important feeling that we had to live through all this here. I am now almost a Kyivite. I never before felt I was a Kyivite. I was from Vradievka. From Mykolaiv. I always felt I was a Southerner, now I feel that I am a Kyivan artist. This interview was conducted by Constance Uzwyshyn and Peter Bejger. Constance Uzwyshyn is an expert on Ukrainian contemporary art. She founded Ukraine’s first foreign-owned professional art gallery, the ARTEast Gallery, in Kyiv. Having written a masters dissertation entitled The Emergence of the Ukrainian Contemporary Art Market, she is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge researching Ukrainian contemporary art. She is also CJLPA 2’s Executive Editor and the Ukrainian Institute of London’s Creative Industries Advisor. Peter Bejger is an editor, filmmaker, and writer based in San Francisco. He was a Fulbright Research Scholar in Ukraine, where he wrote and produced a documentary film on Secession-era architecture of the city of Lviv. Previously, he lived in Kyiv for several years, where he worked as a journalist, media consultant, and cultural critic. [1] Regarding issues of Ukrainian versus Russian identity, the reign of Russian Tsar Peter I is considered by historians a crucial phase in the development of Russian imperial narratives and the appropriation of Ukrainian history, heritage, and culture by a centralising colonial power. See accessed 22 May 2022; Orest Subtelny, Ukraine: A History, (2nd ed, University of Toronto Press 1994) 160-7. [2] Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a notable Soviet dissident and spoke out against communism. He raised awareness of the brutality of the repressive Soviet Union, particularly the Gulag system. He was imprisoned in the Lubyanka prison and then was sentenced to an eight-year term in a hard labour camp. [3] Turkish word ‘Kasap’ noun means killer, slaughterer, meatman. [4] Cf. Serhii Plokhy (ed), Poltava 1709: The Battle and the Myth (Harvard University Press 2012). [5] Cf. Kristian Gerner, ‘The Battle of Poltava as a Realm of Memory and a Bone of Contention’ (2009) 31(1/4) 679-693. [6] In the mid-1990s, Tistol created Ukrainian Money Project. This project coincided with Ukraine producing its own currency: a reference to Ukraine’s independence and the step away from Russian domination. Tistol’s money project embodies Ukrainian contemporary stereotypes and historical references. He specifically plays with intaglio printing to achieve a subtle offset print and cleverly adds vignettes, numerals, and lettering to create his own version of money art. [7] This is a play on the terms Fascism and Russia. Cf. Timothy Snyder, ‘The War in Ukraine has Unleashed a New Word: Ruscism’ The New York Times Magazine (New York, 22 April 2022) accessed 6 May 2022. [8] In another interview, Tistol elaborates on the cargo cult cultural process, stating that ‘I think the majority of people now sadly realised that one is a culture and a cultural process and the other a cargo cult operation to abolish Mariupol in truth. All people finally understood this’. See ‘КИЇВ. МАЙСТЕРНЯ ОЛЕГА ТІСТОЛА, БЕРЕЗЕНЬ, 2022’ (YouTube, 30 March 2022) accessed 30 March 2022. [9] The Maidan, also known as the ‘Revolution of Dignity’, was a mass political protest in late 2013 and into 2014 in Kyiv that overturned a pro-Russian government and set Ukraine on a pro-European course. [10] Alternative spelling of Cossack. [11] DakhaBrakha is a world-music quartet from Kyiv that tours extensively and has a achieved a global audience with their unique ‘ethno-chaos’ style.. [12] Flora Drury, ‘Ukraine launches hunt for Russian soldiers accused of Bucha war Crimes’ (BBC News,29 April 2022) accessed 2 May 2022. [13] See Andrew Higgins, ‘the War that Continues to Shape Russia, 25 Years Later’ New York Times (New York, 10 December 2009) accessed 6 May 2022; Anna Politkovskaya, A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya (University of Chicago Press 2007). [14] Taras Shevchenko is Ukraine’s national poet, an artist, and a seminal figure in the development of Ukrainian national consciousness. Kobzar is Shevchenko’s first collection of poems and a powerful expression of Ukrainian cultural rebirth.. [15] Rory Finnin. ‘Mountains, Masks, Metre, Meaning: Taras Shevchenko’s ‘Kavkaz’’ (2005) 83(3) The Slavonic and East European Review 396-439. [16] See ‘Remembering Heroes of Euromaidan: Serhiy Nigoyan’ (YouTube, 25 January 2019) accessed 1 May 2022. [17] Russian chanson music derives its ballad-like music by using prison slang and references to criminal life and hardship; it appeals to emotional sentiment to a loved one.

The physical battlefield of the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia is being closely scrutinised by the global community: each day, media platforms present their audience with maps, specked with shading and arrows, depicting the land lost or gained and troop movements of recent days. Behind the scenes, however, a shadowy battlefield of disinformation and political warfare rages just as strongly. The history of disinformation and political warfare Russia and the West are no strangers to information warfare and its potential to shift the balance of power in a conflict, turn the tide of an election, or destabilise a political regime. The most obvious recent example of this was Russian interference in the US Presidential Elections in 2016. Less well documented are the multitude of cyber-attacks perpetrated against Ukraine during the course of the past eight years. In 2014, Ukraine fell victim to Russian interference in its election as the Russian army simultaneously invaded and annexed Crimea. In 2015, suspected Russian cyber-operatives caused blackouts across the country. In 2017, a swathe of Ukrainian businesses and public services fell victim to Russian ransomware attacks, with hackers sharing the chilling message ‘We Do Not Forgive. We Do Not Forget. Expect Us’. Colonel Rolf Wagenbreth, head of the East German Secret Police Active Measures Department X, described the significance of disinformation in warfare. He explained that ‘a powerful adversary can only be defeated through…a sophisticated, methodical, careful and shrewd effort to exploit even the smallest “cracks” between our enemies…and within their elites’. This is precisely what we saw in the rhetoric adopted by Russia in the run up to its annexation of Crimea and more recently in its justification for the invasion into Ukraine. The more polarised a country is, the more vulnerable it is to attack. Today, Russia seeks to pit Ukrainian against Ukrainian by defining the current war as a ‘special military operation’ to ‘protect people who…have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime’. By characterising the current Ukrainian leadership as ‘far right nationalists and neo-Nazis’ perpetrating crimes against humanity on their own people, President Putin plays on existing national division. Ukraine is waging its own form of information warfare. It is of note that media coverage, particularly in Western outlets, has picked up Ukraine's messaging and sought to amplify the success of Ukraine's military forces whilst depicting the Russians as ill-prepared and Russian soldiers as disenchanted, reluctant to turn on Ukrainians whom they regard as their brothers. A significant challenge arises, however, sorting facts from the propaganda of either side. Whilst the Kremlin has been widely criticised for blocking access to pro-West media in Russia—thereby allegedly restricting the flow of accurate reporting of the war to the Russian population—it is equally clear that Western media sources are not impartial. Indeed, Western officials have conceded that ‘while they cannot independently verify information that Kyiv puts out about the evolving battlefield situation, including casualty figures for both sides, it nonetheless represents highly effective stratcom’.[1] According to Sean McFate, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the Ukrainian communication strategy highlights ‘a shift taking place in modern conflicts, from a focus on munitions dropped to one centred in large part on messaging, media and persuasion’.[2] There are regular reports from both sides of the conflict of disinformation, including allegedly falsified records or accounts of incidents. An early example of this was reports of the attack on Snake Island.[3] More recently, a falsified BBC news report published by Russian News outlets asserted that the deadly attack on the train station in Kramatorsk was, in fact, perpetrated by the Ukrainian military.[4] In circumstances where nuggets of truth are disguised by layers of disinformation, the challenge of identifying and proving facts is clearly exacerbated. Establishing the facts is essential if we are to effectively hold perpetrators of war crimes to account. The International Criminal Court (the ‘ICC’)—prosecuting war crimes The ICC has a long—and somewhat chequered—history of prosecuting war crimes. Founded in 2002, it is governed by the Rome Statute and boasts 123 member states. Whilst its objectives are laudable, its practical success at holding perpetrators of war crimes to account is underwhelming. A key reason cited for this is limitations experienced by the court's investigators when it comes to evidence gathering, often rendering it impossible to secure convictions. The ICC's Prosecutor, Karim AA Khan QC, acknowledged this issue in his first speech to the Court when he took office in June 2021. He noted that ‘We cannot invest so much, we cannot raise expectations so high and achieve so little, so often in the courtroom. As an office, we need a greater realisation of what is required by the burden of proof and the obligation to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt’.[5] Historically, the ICC's investigators have faced difficulties arising out of the Court's relatively low funding for investigations, the unreliability of witness evidence, and the inaccessibility of areas in which the alleged crimes took place.[6] Article 61 of the Rome Statute requires that ‘the Prosecutor shall support each charge with sufficient evidence to establish substantial grounds to believe that the person committed the crime charged. The Prosecutor may rely on documentary or summary evidence…’.[7] It is here that the ICC has historically fallen short. Indeed, on a number of occasions, the Prosecutor has failed to clear the evidentiary threshold set out above that there is ‘substantial grounds to believe’ that the individual is responsible for the crimes for which they are charged.[8] It has been widely acknowledged by the ICC's Pre-Trial Chamber that the evidentiary burden of ‘substantial grounds to believe’ requires the Prosecutor to ‘offer concrete and tangible proof demonstrating a clear line of reasoning underpinning [the] specific allegations’.[9] Further, in cases that have proceeded beyond the decision to charge an individual, judges have on several occasions dropped—or the Prosecutor has withdrawn—charges due to insufficient evidence.[10] The recent case against Laurent Gbagbo and Charles Blé Goudé On 31 March 2021, the Appeals Chamber of the ICC upheld the acquittal of the former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo (who held office from 2000 until his arrest in April 2011) and a former student union leader and minister of youth in Gbagbo's government, Charles Blé Goudé.[11] It is of note that the Pre-Trial Chamber originally adjourned the case in 2013 so as to give the Prosecutor more time to gather evidence. In its decision to adjourn, the Pre-Trial Chamber provided a helpful explanation of its role: it is the Chamber's duty to evaluate whether there is sufficient evidence for each of the ‘facts and circumstances’ advanced by the Prosecutor in order to satisfy all of the legal elements of the crime(s) and mode(s) of liability charged. The standard by which the Chamber scrutinizes the evidence is the same for all factual allegations, whether they pertain to the individual crimes charged, contextual elements of the crimes or the criminal responsibility of the suspect.[12] The Chamber explained that, at each stage of proceedings, there is higher evidentiary threshold that needs to be met. The Pre-Trial Chamber went on to clarify the ICC's expectations when it comes to the quality of evidence gathered: the Chamber considers that it would be unhelpful to formulate rigid formal rules, as each exhibit and every witness is unique and must be evaluated on its own merits. Nevertheless, the Chamber does consider it useful to express its general disposition towards certain types of evidence. As a general matter, it is preferable for the Chamber to have as much forensic and other material evidence as possible. Such evidence should be duly authenticated and have clear and unbroken chains of custody. Whenever testimonial evidence is offered, it should, to the extent possible, be based on the first-hand and personal observations of the witnesses.[13] The Prosecutor in this case was criticised by the Chamber for their heavy reliance on NGO reports and press articles when seeking to establish key elements of the case. The Court was clear that whilst reports and articles can provide valuable historical context, they are not a valid substitute for the type of evidence required to meet the evidentiary threshold for the confirmation of charges.[14] What does this mean for the current conflict? On 2 March 2022, Mr Khan QC announced that he was opening an investigation into the situation in Ukraine. Under Article 53 of the Rome Statute, prior to opening an investigation, a Prosecutor must consider whether the information available provides reasonable grounds to believe a crime is being, or has been, perpetrated within the jurisdiction and whether an investigation would serve the interest of the victims.[15] Mr Khan QC confirmed that the court had received referrals from 39 ICC member states and that the investigation would encompass events from 21 November 2013 onwards, including allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide committed on any part of the territory of Ukraine by any person. It is of note that the scope of the investigation is sufficiently broad to cover aggression perpetrated by the Ukrainian military or Ukrainian civilians as well as Russian forces.[16] Mr Khan QC is evidently aware of the ICC's reputation and appears determined to ensure that the failings of previous prosecutions do not apply to the current conflict. Whilst visiting Bucha, Ukraine on 13 April 2022, Mr Khan noted that ‘Truth is very often the first casualty of war’. With this in mind, the ICC has already installed an investigation team on the ground in Ukraine, including forensic scientists, forensic anthropologists, analysts, investigators, and lawyers, ‘so that [the ICC] can really make sure that we separate truth from fiction and go forward to insist on the rights of every individual, every child, every woman and every man to have their lives protected and not wantonly targeted’. Mr Khan QC has promised that ‘a truth [will emerge] in the end…in the courtroom, there is no place to hide and the truth ultimately emerges, whatever the tactics that may be employed or whatever the difficulties and hurdles that exist’.[17] Documenting War Crimes The international community, cognisant of the historic failures of the ICC to secure convictions as a result of insufficiently robust evidence, has established various services to assist with the collection and storage of evidence. By way of example, the Ukrainian Office of the Prosecutor General has created a site facilitating the proper documentation of war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Russian army in Ukraine. Evidence uploaded to the site ‘will be used to prosecute those involved in crimes in accordance with Ukrainian law, as well as in the International Criminal Court in the Hague and in a special tribunal after its creation’.[18] In addition, tech giants such as Google have created apps, such as the eyeWitness to Atrocities App, aimed at humanitarian organisations, investigators, and journalists documenting atrocities in conflict zones or other troubled regions around the world. The app's software enables users to encrypt and anonymously report incidents. Under the ICC's Rules of Procedure and Evidence it is within the Chamber's discretion to ‘assess freely all evidence in order to determine its relevance or admissibility’; further, either party can make an application to challenge the admissibility of evidence submitted by the other side. The Chamber has broad powers in determining whether evidence meets the standards required to be admissible in Court. That said, it is not permitted to ‘impose a legal requirement that corroboration is required in order to prove any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court’.[19] The impact of disinformation on prosecution The ultimate impact of disinformation warfare on the prosecution of war criminals—or indeed, the outcome of the current war in Ukraine—will remain unknown for the foreseeable future. That said, it is of serious concern that the expansion of disinformation warfare (and technical prowess with which it is perpetrated) creates real difficulties for reaching safe prosecutions. Mr Khan QC has noted that ‘We have to pierce the fog of war to get to the truth’, however, with increasingly sophisticated modes of deception this challenge should not be overlooked.[20] Recent reports from the Russian Ministry of Finance indicate that Russia has tripled its ‘mass media’ budget over the past year. Between January and March this year, the Russian government spent 17.4 billion roubles on ‘mass media’ in comparison with only 5.4 billion roubles during the same period last year, with reports suggesting this has been directed towards propaganda efforts.[21] Research indicates that repeated exposure to online falsehoods, even if those falsehoods have low levels of credibility, increases perceptions of veracity over time.[22] A concerning example of this is that a survey in the US revealed that almost one in five Americans believe in QAnon conspiracy theories, including that ‘the government, media and financial words in the US are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping paedophiles who run a global child sex-trafficking operation’.[23] Disinformation warfare is inconspicuous but insidious. It is clear, however, that the international community must recognise that a parallel war is underway and that it must arm itself to guard against disinformation in order to ensure proper and fair administration of justice in the years to come. Alexandra Agnew, Mishcon de Reya Alexandra Agnew is an Associate in the Politics & Law Team at Mishcon de Reya. Alexandra regularly advises clients in relation to government and political disputes. She was part of the team working on Gina Miller’s successful 2019 judicial review case into the legality of the Prime Minister’s prorogation of Parliament and advised whistleblowers in relation to their disclosures to the Equality and Human Rights Commission regarding widespread antisemitism in the Labour Party. Alexandra is also a member of Mishcon’s Purpose-litigation team which uses strategic litigation to drive constructive societal change in three key areas: Human Rights and Governance, the Environment, and Data Rights and Online Accountability. Mishcon de Reya is an independent law firm, which now employs more than 1200 people with over 600 lawyers offering a wide range of legal services to companies and individuals. With presence in London, Singapore and Hong Kong (through its association with Karas LLP), the firm services an international community of clients and provides advice in situations where the constraints of geography often do not apply. This article was written in May 2022. [1] Missy Ryan, Ellen Nakashima, Michael Birnbaum, and David L Stern, ‘Outmatched in military might, Ukraine has excelled in the information war’ The Washington Post (Washington, 16 March 2022). [2] ibid. [3] Zoya Sheftalovich, ‘“Go fuck yourself”, Ukrainian soldiers on Snake Island tell Russian ship before being killed’ Politico (25 February 2022). [4] Pip Cook, ‘Putin hijacks BBC: Russia spreads terrifying video blaming Ukraine for missile attack’ Daily Express (London, 13 April 2022). [5] Susan Kendi, ‘Karim Khan’s first speech as ICC Prosecutor’ (Journalists for Justice, 16 June 2021) . [6] Christian M De Vos, ‘Investigating from Afar: The ICC's Evidence Problem’ (2013) 26 Leiden Journal of International Law 1009. [7] Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (adopted 17 July 1998, entered into force 1 July 2022) 2187 UNTS 38544 (Rome Statute) art 51. [8] Patryk Labuda, ‘The ICC’s “evidence problem”: The future of international criminal investigations after the Gbagbo acquittal’ (Völkerrechtsblog, 18 January 2019) . [9] Prosecutor v Laurent Gbagbo (Pre-Trial Chamber, Decision adjourning the hearing on confirmation of charges pursuant to article 61(7)(c)(i) of the Rome Statute) ICC-02/11-01/11 (3 June 2013). [10] International Criminal Court, Cases . [11] ‘ICC Appeals Chamber confirms Trial Chamber I’s decision acquitting Laurent Gbagbo and Charles Blé Goudé of all charges of crime against humanity’ (International Criminal Court, 31 March 2021) . [12] Prosecutor v Laurent Gbagbo (n 9) [19]. [13] ibid [26-27]. [14] ibid [35]. [15] Rome Statue (n 7) art 53. [16] ‘Statement of ICC Prosecutor, Karim AA Khan QC, on the Situation in Ukraine: Receipt of Referrals from 39 States Parties and the Opening of an Investigation’ (International Criminal Court, 2 March 2022) . [17] Catherine Philp, ‘Truth will out about Russian war crimes in Ukraine, says British prosecutor’ The Times (London, 13 April 2022). [18] ‘Criminal liability for # RussianWarCrimes!’ . [19] ‘Rules of Procedure and Evidence’, Official Records of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, First session, New York, 3-10 September 2002 (ICC-ASP/1/3 and Corr.1), part II.A (Rules 63-64). [20] Philp (n 17). [21] Tom Ball, ‘Russians create fake BBC news video to blame Ukraine for bombing’ The Times (London, 13 April 2022). [22] Gordon Pennycook, Tyrone D Cannon, and David G Rand, ‘Prior exposure increases perceived accuracy of fake news’ (2018) 147 Journal of Experimental Psychology 1865. [23] ‘The Persistence of QAnon in the Post-Trump Era: An Analysis of Who Believes the Conspiracies’ (PRRI, 24 February 2022) .