Speech by Toomas Järvet, co-founder of the Juhan Kuus Documentary Photo Centre, on Europe Day

The co-founder of the Documentary Photo Centre had the honour of speaking at the European Commission Representation’s Europe Day seminar and introducing the Ukrainian Art Festival UKUfest, of which our photo centre is also participating with an exhibition by Pavlo Mazai.

Here is the transcript of the speech.

“Art is a lie that makes us realise the truth,” said Picasso.

He proved it when he painted Guernica, in response to the bombing of civilians during the Spanish Civil War. Today, Guernica is considered one of the most potent anti-war paintings — and the defining work of the 20th century.

Nearly 90 years later, another European country is in flames.
Another people are resisting.
And once again, artists are not silent.
They are bearing witness.
They are building truth — not with bombs or slogans, but with colours, cameras, voices, rhythms, and metaphors.

Dear Ambassadors, honoured and distinguished guests,
It is an honour to speak to you on Europe Day, a celebration of unity, peace, and shared values.

These principles are at the heart of the Ukrainian Art Festival we inaugurate today in Tallinn.

This festival — the first of its kind in Estonia — brings together some of the most compelling voices in contemporary Ukrainian art.
It is not a retrospective of a distant past, but a living testament to the present — to the courage, creativity, and cultural richness that persist, even in times of war.

We often speak of defending land, people, and freedom.
But we must also speak of defending culture.

As Hannele Valkeeniemi, Director of the Soome Instituut, recently wrote: “Culture gives us the knowledge of what and why we defend. Without culture, national defence would have no meaning.”

She was quoting Mika Kalliomaa, Rector of the Finnish Defence University — words spoken after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
When culture is attacked, art, memory, identity, and hope are destroyed.
Art is not a luxury in wartime.

It is an act of resilience.
It holds space for grief, truth, hope and complexity.
It defies silence.
It reminds us that creativity continues — even under the weight of occupation, siege, or exile.
Expression continues. And this, too, is resistance.

The artists featured in this festival offer more than images.
They offer insight.
They offer presence.
They serve as cultural witnesses.
They tell the truth of our time — through a deeply personal and artistic lens.
Their works are not simply about war.
They are about life — relationships, homes, roots, landscapes — all that war tries to take away, but can never fully erase.

It’s important work they do — because when the dust settles, these cultural traces remain — to teach, to remember, to rebuild.

Today, by standing here together — Estonians, Ukrainians, Europeans and world citizens from many places — we affirm that culture is not peripheral.
It is essential. It is not a decoration of peace — but its foundation.

Let us also acknowledge the galleries and photo centres that have made this festival possible:

ArtDepoo galerii showcases works by five Ukrainian artists: Anton Hudo, Viktoria Berezina, Maya Kolesnik, Roman Minin and Аndrii Palval who turn the space into a raw, expressive canvas of resilience.

Fotografiska Tallinn features works by Taras Bychko, Tania Ruda, and Vira Minailova — exploring memory, presence, and transformation. Their images offer quiet yet piercing reflections on life during war.

Galerii Truus presents Polina Kuznetsova’s “The Journey Continues” — a body of work shaped by her escape from Kharkiv to Tallinn. Her paintings evoke displacement, memory, and the emotional textures of rebuilding a life.

At Dokfoto Keskus, Pavlo Mazai’s poetic photographic essays form an existential meditation on fragility, time, land and soul.
His lens does not merely document — it listens.

Temnikova & Kasela Gallery hosts Daria Koltsova’s The Kiosk — a poetic, dystopian space where memory, longing, and quiet resistance converge. Inside a recreated Soviet-style kiosk, stained-glass postcards evoke lost Ukrainian landscapes, while glass sunflowers titled Witnesses stand like fragile sentinels of a homeland transformed yet not erased.

But the Ukrainian Art Festival offers much more than exhibitions.
Across Tallinn, concerts, performances, artist talks, auctions, and satellite events will take place—a vibrant programme that celebrates Ukrainian creativity in all its forms.

I encourage you to explore and discover what’s happening next through UKUFest.ee website and our social media channels.

So let us listen.
Let us look.

And let us honour the voices that speak through this art — not only as supporters of Ukraine, but as believers in the enduring power of culture to hold us together when the world tries to tear us apart.

Thank you, Embassy of Ukraine in the Republic of Estonia, all the artists, supporters, partners, friends, and volunteers who have made this festival possible.

Slava Ukrainii!