Listen to our new podcast

War doesn’t mute culture — it sharpens it. And art isn’t a luxury to postpone until better times. They are both forces of resistance and ways to safeguard identity.

Back Fire: Stories of Cultural Counterforce is our new podcast series, bringing you voices from Ukrainian and Dutch artists who respond to crisis not with silence, but with imagination. Through weaving traditions, visual arts, music, and acts of cultural exchange, they reveal how creativity can protect and reshape identity, nurture resilience and creative defiance, and spark unexpected but profound connections across borders.

Back Fire offers vivid reminders that even the smallest creative gestures can carry weight — and that culture remains a lifeline, even in the darkest times.

Episode two of Back Fire welcomes Marjo van Schaik, a Dutch artist, designer, and cultural strategist working between Kyiv and Amsterdam. She dives into the vibrant energy of Ukraine’s art scene, what she has learned from traditional weaving as a way to tell new stories, and the importance of cultural exchange for keeping artists visible and supported. Together, we explore women’s leadership, the value of creating space for connection, mutual inspiration, and how even small steps can spark real change.

The exhibition FIGHT, FLIGHT or FREEZE?, by Marjo and fellow Ukrainian designers, will be on view during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven from 18–26 October. Marjo is also part of Ro3kvit, a coalition of over 100 professionals from Ukraine and beyond who unite to create knowledge and urban design methodologies for rebuilding Ukraine’s urban and rural areas and infrastructure.

In our first episode, we meet Anastasiia Manuliak — curator, cultural manager, and Head of Visual Arts at the Ukrainian Institute in Kyiv. She is also representative of the Zapravka residency programme. Although Ukraine's art scene is surprisingly vibrant, the full-scale invasion has completely reshaped it, especially for young artists, she says. Anastasiia also reflects on memory as a form of resilience, the role of art in preserving it, and how Europe shapes the question of where Ukraine belongs.

Back Fire is part of our new platform, Threads of Identity: The Unyielding Spirit of Ukraine’s Cultural Sector, to support the Ukrainian cultural sector. This podcast series is co-produced by DutchCulture and Are We Europe.