ELIA Dialogue Series
Higher Arts Education in Times of Conflict

Post-conflict Reconstruction from a Human Perspective by Christella Niyonzima, Impunity Watch Burundi

Christella Niyonzima is a Burundian Researcher & Transitional Justice (TJ) Practitioner, with a focus on gender & conflict sensitivity. She is working with Impunity Watch Burundi as a Researcher and Head of Programmes, applying her academic foundation in Political Science, International Relations, with a specialisation in Peace and Governance from Africa University (Zimbabwe). Deeply committed to community-driven Transitional Justice, Christella incorporates culture and arts-based methodologies on truth-seeking efforts and community healing. As a member of the African Union's TJ Experts Pool, she critically explores post-conflict reconstruction from a human perspective. She has co-authored several research studies and led innovative memory-preservation projects.

 

‘Listening Across the Borders’ by Diego Kohn, Zurich University of the Arts

This intercultural art project explores the power of sound and listening as tools to foster dialogue across geographical, cultural, and political divides. Developed in the aftermath of the events of 7 October 2023, the project brought together artists from Israel, Palestine, Iran, Switzerland, and other parts of Europe to reflect on identity, belonging, and coexistence through sound-based practices. Kohn reflects on the challenges that shaped the process—particularly the strong resistance encountered during the artists recruitment phase. While the project created a safe space for artists to collaborate, many potential participants felt unable to take part. This tension between intention and reality became a central aspect of the project itself.

 

‘AFTER CRISIS’ by Abel Kotorman, alumnus of Mozarteum University Salzburg

'After Crisis’ explores questions of the aesthetics of socio-political and personal crises. It is the apocalypse of a Master Project of Applied Theatre.The dramaturgy of crisis will appear in different forms and perspectives, throughout the process. As we live in times of uncertainty, the power of narration and shared experiences are crucial forms of support. Kotorman creates links between spaces, people, projects and everyday items – the autobiographical approach is complemented by research, where different individuals and groups talk about internal or external turning points.

 

“The local does go with the global (it does – whether you like it or not)” by Ulrike Hatzer, Mozarteum University Salzburg

How can a community-based (and thus local) study programme be international? Or the other way around, how do we understand (local) communities? The “Applied Theatre” MA at the Thomas Bernhard Institute is practised on the local level – with local communities that include people from global contexts – and is, of course, informed by the global level. At the same time, we face international students, who are more accurately described as exile students. The presentation offers some structural insights into how “staying in dialogue through work” is applied as a fundamental tool for facing the conflicts in the world and in our communities, and also presents some examples.

 

‘Rebuilding of Gaza. Post-war reconstruction’ by Fabienne Hoelzel, Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design (ABK)

In the winter semester 2024/25, a group of international students collaborated on the project “Rebuilding of Gaza”. The students examined strategies for post-war reconstruction embedded within the current political framework, which assumes governance development in three stages: ceasefire, peace agreement, and two-state solution. These stages consider the different funding opportunities for reconstruction, from donor-intense strategies and international to small-scale private funds. The course was divided into three parts: (1) infrastructure, energy, mobility, and transportation, (2) blue-green network, and (3) housing.

Moderation by Dr. Silke Lange, creative practitioner, educator, and researcher. She has over twenty years’ experience in creative arts education in a variety of roles and organisations, across levels and subjects, and geographical borders. Her professional practice/research is mostly collaborative, working at the intersection of educational practice and knowledge exchange. This approach has been providing a productive platform for exploring alternative models of educational provisions, and collectively reimagining knowledge-making processes. Silke has a long-established track record in developing strategies of connecting different communities, lowering hierarchies of knowledge generation within educational frameworks, and fostering cultures that support professional development of individuals and teams at any level. Building and changing cultures are collective undertakings; her interventions are driven by one of her core values: participation. Participation in the sense of co-developing culturally responsive pedagogy, co-curating learning environments and co-designing alternative modes of learning. Silke Lange is an engaged ELIA member and currently actively involved in ELIA's UAx Project supporting art students and higher arts education institutions in Ukraine.

The ELIA Dialogue Series was launched in July 2024, as an online space where higher arts education communities, international experts, and thought leaders could meet to address urgent questions facing the role of higher arts education institutions in times of crisis and conflict. The series was devised in response to the crisis in Gaza which has sent shockwaves through the higher arts education community. In line with our community’s values, ELIA is committed to supporting and connecting its members through creating brave and safe spaces for open dialogue, as well as academic and artistic exchange. This role has become crucial in times of conflict and crisis, when voicing opinions can be difficult and challenging, but is essential to advancing our shared sense of humanity.

The first session on 12 July 2024 featured a talk by Dr Jannis Julien Grimm, titled: “Academic Integrity in the Context of Conflict and Humanitarian Crisis: Defending Higher Education as a Space of Empathy and Multi-Perspectivity”. This was then followed by a second session on 4 October 2024 focused on ‘how to talk about politically charged topics in higher education institutions’.

The humanitarian crisis and occupation in Gaza continues. Civilians based there and in neighbouring regions continue to be affected by war, displacement and starvation. In our previous statements (2023, 2024), ELIA has condemned in the strongest terms all violations of human rights and international law reported in Palestine and Israel. We reiterate our calls for the adherence to international law, the implementation of a ceasefire, and the protection of civilians in the region. ELIA stands against all forms of discrimination and racism, including antisemitism and Islamophobia. We are very concerned to see freedom of expression and the right to protest increasingly threatened across the globe. These principles must be unequivocally upheld.