Turbulent times evoke waves of various and often conflicting emotions. How to understand them, deal with them and express them? This is Kaleidoscope of Emotions – a project by NGO Ukraina Maja (Ukrainian House) and the Ukrainian community in Tartu -, curated by Viktoria Berezina (UA), an award-winning exiled artist from Kherson who became widely known in Estonia for her war letters full of pain and hope.

Project “Kaleidoscope of Emotions” is a part of the European Capital of Culture Tartu 2024 main programme.

Since the beginning of the full-scale russian war in Ukraine, thousands of Ukrainians had to leave home to find shelter in Estonia. Many have to rebuild their lives from scratch: rebuild their home, career, social circle and identity. It is a difficult mission, especially when the war at home continues, and requires new skills and new arts of survival involving emotional intelligence and mental resilience.

In 2023-2024, this project organises a series of community meetings for the Ukrainians of Tartu and Southern Estonia where everyone is encouraged to express their emotions and feelings. Meetings are guided by a specialist who offers practices on how to cope with feelings, express them, and how to support oneself. During these conversations, we will also create an art object – a kaleidoscope of our emotions – from pieces of fabric with our hands.

The art object will be made in colours chosen by the participants to express a variety of emotions, to tell personal stories, to give Ukrainians humane, sensitive and artistic visibility in the city and to involve others in dialogue.

Like in a kaleidoscope – a nostalgic toy from a childhood – one can take the pieces of sharp glass and a whole variety of emotions and combine them together into something new and beautiful to find new joy and purpose with support of the community.

As the finale of this project, the art object will be presented in the centre of Tartu in Summer 2024. The presentation will be a public event for everyone. Part of it will be an interactive workshop on mental health. During the workshop we will:

Go through the exhibition with a curator’s tour exploring the kaleidoscope of emotions in the presented net and personal stories of Ukrainians in Tartu and Southern Estonia.
Talk about expressing your own feelings and learn techniques to cope with anxiety, understanding mixed feelings and coping with mismatching moods.
Engage in art therapy workshops related to fibre art and Ukrainian traditional art.

The event will be held in English, but the art of expressing ourselves through textiles, threads and colours has no language barrier, as well as no age, gender or background limitations.

If you want to grab a bite or need a place to stay, see what the Tartu 2024 hospitality network offers in the area: https://tartu2024.ee/recommendations-tartucity