Sunday, 9 February 2025

Conference Acceptances


I am delighted to be attending and presenting work at three fantastic conferences this year. The first, in May, is the ASN Annual World Convention co-hosted by the Harriman Institute at Columbia University in New York. I visited the institute in 2023 as a result of a travel stipend I was awarded by HREC to atttend the conference “The Assault on Culture in Ukraine: The Holodomor Years”.


The Thinker by Rodin at Columbia University. Photo: Author, 2023.


In July I travel to London to take part in the ICCEES XI World Congress. The congress is hosted by the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES), the UK’s largest institution for research and teaching on the region. I will combine my visit with archival work at LSE, to read the diaries of Beatrice Webb.


In October I am very excited to be attending and presenting at the Dmytro Shtohryn International Ukrainian Studies Conference at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The thematic focus is on ‘continuities and ruptures’ across disciplines on topics related to Ukraine. For all three conferences I am presenting my new work, documented on this blog – visualisations of testimony from the Holodomor from the letters of Jerry Berman.


Sunday, 2 February 2025

Berlin

I have been in Berlin this week for the superb 18th British Shorts film festival. The festival was the festival premiere for 90 Years from Holodomor, which appeared at City Kino Wedding to a sell out audience of 200 people. Because of demand, the same screening ran as an identical programme at Sputnik Kino on the same night, so my work also appeared in front of audiences across Berlin.

British Shorts filmmakers dragon


90 Years from Holodomor at British Shorts Berlin


The event was Short Film Screenings (Animation Special) & Audience Award. The programme was excellent, it was a huge compliment to make selection. The stand out film for me was And Granny Would Dance by Maryam Mohajer. A brilliant, character portrayal about memory, childhood and culture, beautifully constructed and produced by Animate Projects and the BFI. The film came third in the audience award which followed the animation screening. The winner was Previs by Ruaidhri Ryan, which I also loved.


And Granny Would Dance by Maryam Mohajer


I had a new life experience on my way to Berlin in the form of an emergency (unscheduled) landing at Heathrow due to an engine problem on the plane I was on, due to fly from Manchester – Munich. I downloaded the flight data – at first the huge drop in speed at 2.00am (all time in EST rather than local time) – almost half was alarming. Thanks to the brilliant flightradar24 site I was able to watch the full flight playback including the point at which the emergency was declared, the drop in speed was simply the aircraft turning over the channel. I also got the full details of the error messages and emergency codes (PAN PAN) online which is fascinating. The landing was a precaution, as was explained by the pilot at the time. I rebooked a flight from Heathrow to Berlin as soon as the plane landed and actually arrived in Berlin earlier than I would have done via Munich and the train. Below is my breakfast courtesy of Michelberger on my return journey.



FlightAware Flight Track Log



FlightAware Flight path.

A photograph of the plane landing at London Heathrow from the AIRLIVE website

Michelberger breakfast on the train from Berlin – Munich