Belarus in 50 Years: Projects and Utopias… Conference, 11-12 March 2016

Flying University and the Center for European Transformation invite participants to the annual conference “Imagining Belarus: Images and Ideas, Projects and Utopias”, which will take place in Minsk on 11-12 March 2016.

The theme of the conference arose from a current understanding of the state of Belarusian society, which has found itself in a situation where the reference points that could provide a motivating vision of the future have been lost.

“The Belarusian dream”, a utopia, is a common sky under which it is possible to build one’s own personal trajectories, implement projects or unfold programmes of action. Increasingly, we observe that former reference points of very different kinds (communism, the European world, democracy, the Belarusian nation, etc.) are being destroyed under the pressure of the flaws of implementation, segmentation and the individualisation of the “world”. The “sky” is lowering; the space of imagination and dreams is becoming ever simpler.

Today, through intellectual and cultural efforts, we can try to “raise the sky” by proposing images, concepts, ideas and even fantasies that require not implementation, but shared imagination, vision and aspiration.

Let us imagine Belarus in 50 years as it should be.

The conference programme includes a discussion of Belarus’s future from several angles and perspectives:

• Aesthetic image (spatial, stylistic and visual visions)
• Social relations (connections, structures, forms of existence)
• Political processes and institutions (relations, processes, technologies)
• Ethical and anthropological perspectives (the human being of the future)
• Relations between humans and the environment (systemic existence and processes, artificial-natural interaction)

Two presentations will be given on each of the listed topics, followed by a joint discussion among conference participants. The format of the conference provides considerable space for discussion, as well as reflection on forms of thinking about the future.

The invited speakers include: Uladzimir Matskevich, Mikhail Bayarin, Tatsiana Shchyttsova, Mikhail Anempadystau, Iryna Dubianetskaya, Tatsiana Vadalazhskaya, Andrei Yahorau, Heorhii Zaborski, Yaraslau Bekish, Pavel Barkouski, Volha Oryshava and others.

To participate in the conference, please submit an application by 1 March by filling in the form.

For participants from other cities, the organisers will cover travel and accommodation. The number of conference participants is limited, and the Organizing Committee reserves the right to select participants according to the “goals and motivation for participation”.

For all organisational questions, please contact Yuliya Halinouskaya: flyuniby@gmail.com, +375297422040