“WHAT?!” – Rise Up’s itinerant exhibition
The artistic team of the project has created “WHAT?!”, an itinerant exhibition that is currently traveling across Europe. It premiered in Cornwall, has visited North Macedonia, Val d’Aran and Slovakia and it is now going to Setomaa.
We are aware that the name of the exhibition may come as a surprise to some: we chose to call it “WHAT?!” because that is the most common word when the RISE UP team and the communities learn about other languages and cultures. “WHAT?!” might come out of someone’s mouth as a sign of amazement, incredulity or simply expressing the need to hear a word one more time. In our context, it always comes as a request to know more about something that is important for people from different communities. Thus, we hoped that along with the exhibition, many curious people would ask “what” and learn a lot from the responses.
The core of the exhibition are the artworks: we commissioned an artist from each community to create a piece that communicates a message, an image, or a feeling that they would like to share. For example, artists were asked: What would you say to the community? And what would you like to say to people from outside your community? And other questions that we thought through together in the conversations that followed. From those conversations, they created five pieces. Thus, the exhibition puts minoritised languages in the foreground and celebrates 5 community-focused creators: Lianne Wilson (Cornish), Viktoria Ratasich (Burgenland Croatian), Ricard Novell (Aranese), Teano Kardula (Aromanian) and Yyhely Hälvin (Seto). Alongside the artworks, there are informative panels about the five minority/minoritised language communities, around which visitors can come together to learn about each other’s cultures, languages and lived realities. The panels are translated into the minority/minoritised language of the community the exhibition was presented in, with translations to other languages available in a smaller format.
For RISE UP’s artistic team, it is of utmost importance that the minority/minoritised language did not stay only on the panels, but to provide occasions to hear it, speak it and live it. That is why, along with the exhibition, we organized events and activities where people could share, learn, experience and enjoy the language. Also, as we cannot possibly speak all the communities’ languages, in four out of five places, we had an assistant from each community to help us.
Redruth – Kernow, February 28th – March 1st 2025
The exhibition premiered in Cornwall on February 28th, 2025, and it was hosted for two days in Redruth Library. It was visited by lots of people attending the Saint Piran’s Day festivities, who showed great interest in the project, the artworks, and the communities – and, especially, the fact that the exhibition was done completely in Cornish. In fact, some visitors stressed that “WHAT?!” was the first one they had seen entirely in that language.
One of the highlights was a reading by Lianne Wilson – the artist representing the Cornish community in the exhibition – who shared some of her bilingual (Cornish & English) poetry with the visitors. Lianne was also the assistant, so she spent all Saturday with us and helped people get more in touch with the language and the artworks. It was surprising to see how visitors improvised language exchanges and lessons, and also had great conversations about what it means to learn Cornish or being a Cornish speaker.
Skopje- North Macedonia, June 11th 2025
After Cornwall, the exhibition visited Skopje, North Macedonia, where we were hosted by Europe’s House. It was organized in collaboration with the youth Aromanian organization TIHE. For that occasion, the materials were translated into Aromanian and Macedonian, and they were also recorded to make them more accessible to people who might have difficulties reading the language. The Aromanian community also brought traditional dresses and regalia to show along with the panels, which made the exhibition even more special.
Aside from the exhibition, we also had many activities going on. First of all, RISE UP’s Aromanian artist, Teano Cardula, as well as Kalia Dimitrova, read Aromanian poetry and translated it into Macedonian. We also had an Aromanian music concert with Elena Djika and Aleksandra Stankoska, and professor Ana Martinoska spoke about language, identity and traditional culture. We organized all those events with the help of the young assistant Veronica Gjaku. It was a great gathering, and Aromanian people were very generous in sharing their feelings and experiences. As RISE UP, it was impressive to see an older person who was crying for the most part of it. We thought that maybe we had offended them somehow, only to find out that they were thriving as they were the last Aromanian speaker of their family and could not believe that such an evening was taking place. As you can imagine, it was very emotional for us too.
Les – Val d’Aran, August 2nd 2025
After Skopje, the exhibition visited Les, in Val d’Aran (north of Spain), and it was organized in collaboration with Ajuntament de Les (Les’ Townhall) and the traditional dance group Es Corbilhuèrs de Les, who were celebrating the more than 75 years of Aranese dances in Les. Aside from the exhibition itself, we had many activities. The first one, inspired by the clothing in Skopje’s exhibition, was a lesson on Aranese traditional attire by Gala Padró. Later on, we had a Storytelling activity for children by the Aranese actor Pablo Remiseiro, with many great stories (some written by him himself), and lots of fun. Last but not least, a boardgame afternoon was hosted by Claudia del Olmo, who managed to teach Aranese to children who did not speak the language through games. This was possible also thanks to the young assistant Aina Cuito, who welcomed people into the exhibition and helped visitors send their messages to the other communities.
Dan Mladine – Slovakia, September 12th – 13th 2025
The next stop of the exhibition was Dan Mladine, the Burgenland Croatian youth music festival, organized by HAK, who kindly hosted us. It was great to be present in such an event: the panels were set in a tent and concerts were very close, so people with many different interests approached “WHAT?!”. We were thrilled to offer a workshop on feminist cross-stitch hosted by Viktoria Ratasich, the RISE UP artist from the Burgenland Croatian community. She taught the participants the way she creates the artworks and helped them to create their own pieces.
