With Alina Mozolevska, Sabine von Löwis, Maria and Natalia Petschatnikov and Anastasiya Leukhina 

In the face of mass displacement, the lived experiences of individuals are often reduced to data points or reductionist portrayals, which often strip individuals of their agency. The intersection of visual arts and academic research offers a powerful way to reclaim that agency. This discussion examines how creative visual tools allow migrants to move beyond being subjects of observation to becoming active authors of their own stories. Join us to discover how visual tools are used to disrupt traditional narratives about refuge.  

As well as talking, we will also look at the documentary animation film ‘Art Ponedilok. Arriving in Berlin’ made by 16 Berlin-based refugees and volunteers. In addition, we will look at the mental maps created by the respondents of the “Displacement from and in Ukraine: Decisions, Trajectories, Attitudes, Perspectives” research project as a way of documenting their forced displacement experience. 

On 10 March, the exhibition of the creative laboratory Art Ponedilok opens at ZOiS. Art Ponedilok is a group of amateur women artists founded in 2022 by Maria and Natalia Petschatnikov, a Berlin-based artist duo. Art Ponedilok brings together more than 100 Ukrainian women who were forced to leave their country as a result of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, as well as Berlin-based volunteers. Since then, they have met every Monday at the visitor center of the Berlin Wall Foundation to work together and share their experiences of living in a new city. 

The exhibition presents works by the participants that give expression to their individual and collective experiences of forced migration and arriving in Germany. The works open up visual perspectives on loss, new beginnings, adaptation and empowerment, and make visible artistic forms of expression by people who have experienced displacement. 

6pm - 7:30pm - Panel discussion and documentary animation film screening 

7:30pm - 7:45pm - Exhibition opening 

7:45pm - 8:30pm - Getting to know the art works, snacks and networking 

• Alina Mozolevska, guest professor for Border Studies at the UniGR-Center for Border Studies at Saarland University, associate professor at the Institute of Philology at Petro Mohyla Black Sea State University, and a former UNET Fellow at ZOiS 
• Sabine von Löwis, Head of the research cluster on Conflict Dynamics and Border Regions at ZOiS 
• Maria and Natalia Petschatnikov, artists, directors of the ‘Arriving in Berlin’ documentary animation film, and creators of the Art Ponedilok project for Ukrainian Refugees. 
• Moderator: Anastasiya Leukhina, UNET Project Coordinator at ZOiS and member of the Art Ponedilok community  

Registration

The animation: 

The project was supported by Kultur Projekte Berlin and Stiftung Berliner Mauer. 

Best film in the Documentary Animation category of the International Short Film Festival ‘Diogenes’, Jerusalem, 2026, 
Audience Vote, second place, International Animated Short-Films Festival ‘Coliffe’, Italy, 2025, 
Official Selection in the Animation Category at the 37th Girona Film Festival, Spain, 2025. 

The project  “Displacement from and in Ukraine: Decisions, Trajectories, Attitudes, Perspectives” received start-up funding from the DFG-sponsored Contestations of the Liberal Script (SCRIPTS) Cluster of Excellence and is now funded by ZOiS.