“For Ukraine, with Love: Culture, Care, and Collaboration at the Sunflower Solidarity Center” -- Refugees Across the Arts: Global Cultures of Displacement in the 21st Century
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Overview
Overview
Abstract
When visiting the headquarters of the Warsaw-based Sunflower Solidarity Community Center, one is immediately drawn to a wall filled with bright, colorful paintings featuring sunflowers, sunflower seeds, flags, and other emblems of Ukrainian pride. Although this is only a fraction of the creative projects completed by Sunflower participants, it imbues the space with a constant reminder of the collaboration activated within this grassroots enclave of support and resistance. The Sunflower Solidarity Center was founded in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Since then they have operated under the umbrella of the Warsaw Museum of Modern Art and their activity has ranged from providing direct humanitarian aid, to hosting language classes, arts workshops, lectures, and serving as a cultural incubator of artistic resistance. Rejecting traditional conceptions of the so-called “refugee,” this group instead articulates a dynamic vision of the displaced subject — one that is an active and creative agent fueled by, and invested in, a collaborative ethos. For Sunflower Solidarity the lines between aid, collaboration, and culture are continuously blurring. Thus, their practice embodies a radical aesthetics of care and hospitality, opening up questions about the nature of this kind of cultural work. After all, how does one begin to understand a sandwich assembly line as an embodiment of culture? What is the role of art and culture in the context of war and displacement? And what does it mean for such an aesthetic undertaking to emerge in Warsaw; a city shaped by occupation, genocide, and resistance? This essay begins by contextualizing Sunflower Solidarity within the still-unfolding history of the Russo-Ukrainian war. Next, it examines the art activism undertaken by Sunflower Solidarity, tracing the group’s early organizing in February 2022; its community outreach; and its more recent cultural work that foregrounds the collective’s investment in promoting Ukrainian cultural producers. Ultimately, I argue that care, collaboration, and hospitality underpin Sunflower Solidarity’s work, foregrounding the potential power of the displaced subject and reformulating their status as an active agent and cultural producer. Sunflower Solidarity expands our conception of cultural practice through their implementation of a politics and aesthetics of care. This in turn asserts the vital importance of culture in the broader context of aid and resistance, underscoring the emancipatory possibilities of cultural practice in crisis.
