"Hopeless but not serious..."

Author talk with Cecilia Hansson at Ystad Art Museum in collaboration with ABF
4:00 PM in the art museum's auditorium

Free culture is under attack in many parts of Europe. Conservative and right-wing populist forces are pushing ever tougher demands for control and censorship. Not least in Central Europe, the art scene is being politicized today.

Hopeless, but not serious. Art and politics in Central Europe are about survival, resistance, censorship and freedom in a region that is politically highly topical and of great importance for the development of the entire world.

Cecilia Hansson has traveled between Stockholm and Vienna, Bucharest and Budapest for several years to understand the increasingly harsh cultural climate. She meets some of Europe's leading intellectuals, from Herta Müller and Péter Nádas to Marina Abramović, Michael Haneke and many more. They talk about the conditions for creation, but also the larger questions about the importance of art and the artist's ability to influence social debate. In close and in-depth interviews, Hansson touches on issues such as the legacy of communism and fascism, the inevitability of art, the return of authoritarian ideas and how neither stability nor security can be taken for granted in Europe today. The result is a unique insight into the region and returns to a central question: What responsibility does an artist really have to stand up for what she or he believes in?

Cecilia Hansson (born 1973) is a writer, journalist, M.A. in German and translator. She has written four poetry collections - her debut book was set in Vienna - and translated two. She has followed Central Europe through studies, travels and reports for more than twenty years.