A Debates on Europe panel featuring JAN CARSON (writer, Northern Ireland), LÁSZLÓ FÖLDÉNYI (art theorist, literary scholar and essayist, Hungary) and IRYNA VIDANAVA (author and media activist, Belarus)
Moderator: CARL HENRIK FREDRIKSSON (Programme Director, Debates on Europe)

Art and culture have a unique capacity to both describe and shape shared experience. Even create it. But cultural expression — be it in art, literature or the media — also fulfils a critical, controversial and provocative role in society, representing a corrective to power and a challenge to alleged consensus. What role can art and culture have in bridging divisions and contributing to social cohesion? Should it all be assigned such a task? In a panel discussion spanning European societies characterized by conflict and division — from Northern Ireland in the west, via Hungary, to Belarus in the east — prominent cultural actors and activists speak about the integrative force and critical potential of culture

The discussion was part of the Digital Congress "Divided Societies: Germany and Europe as Intercultural Spaces of Experience" (10 to 12 May 2021).

An event of the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden in cooperation with the City of Dresden, the Federal Agency for Civic Education, the Conference of National Cultural Institutions, the Mercator Forum Migration and Democracy (MIDEM) at the Technical University of Dresden, the umbrella organization of migrant organizations in Eastern Germany, the Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft and "Debates on Europe".

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